L and A

Lessons learned.

2012-02-05T03:24:00.001+01:00

Yes, I learned more than one lesson tonight.

But I won't go into them all.

Just the one that is supremely embarrassing.

I've been working backstage on a play (yes, a play, and I will blog about this). There was a little party tonight. I drove to the play and then to the party. Then I decided to have some wine. So I needed to leave my car. Norway has a no drinking and driving policy. Not even one drink. I went with The Dame back to his place for more socializing before going home. It wasn't all that late that the party ended. After a bit of chatting and bitching and chatting and sharing British vs American intelligent and entertaining radio shows, we decided it was time to call a cab.

The cab came about 45 minutes later, give or take.

I got in the cab with the borrowed cash from The Dame because I don't have a proper Norwegian credit card and the taxis don't take debit card (What century are they in?). We were not more than 1 minute from my place when I realized...Oh shit! I don't have the house key!

In my mind, I started racing through my options.

A. Sleep in the entry until Austin comes home around 10am from his trip to India and he can let me in.

A is vetoed because that's silly and it's cold as ice in the entry of the house. It's snow covered and at least -3C outside. No heating in the entry. No one else has a key. I can hardly knock on a neighbor's door to call the landlord to let me in.

B. Call The Dame and ask for help.

B is momentarily vetoed because I forgot my cell phone.

C. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

D. Go back to The Dame's house. We'll think of something even if it means sleeping on his couch and then going to the car in the morning.

Where is my car?

I tell the taxi driver to just go back to where he picked me up. Then I say, no go to Storhaug, the general area where my car is. Mind you, Storhaug is a maze and I'm not exactly sure where my car is but I think I could probably find it. The taxi driver asks if we should call the number back because he has The Dame's number from the original call. (It's kind of brilliant actually.)

Then I call The Dame. Where is my car? And he tells me that he has to call me back. So he looks it up, calls back, and I tell the driver. (We are doing this all on the taxi driver's cell phone!) Luckily, the driver only needs the first few letters of the street and he can figure it out. So we go racing back to my car. Meanwhile, I tell him I only have so much cash and is it okay? Because it could be that actually and most likely I have just less than the fare. He says okay. We go back to my car.

There it is!!! I am jumping out of the taxi before he even comes to a complete stop. I am in such a completely embarrassed state that I can't even begin to describe. I get the key and off we race to my place. I keep apologizing because I'm really taking up more of his time and fares. But he says, "Oh! It's okay. People forget their airplane tickets, passports, and things all the time. No problem." It makes me feel a little better.

But I got home. I know where my car is. And I learned to not leave my house keys in the car. Leave them in my purse or in my pocket!!!!

And it turns out that Austin's flight has been rerouted and he won't be home until much later then expected. Good thing I didn't decide to sleep in the entry.

Furthermore...The Dame and I were complaining about how expensive taxis are in Stavanger. Yes, the taxis are expensive, but to feel so safe in the situation and that I wasn't going to be fleeced, it was a very nice thing indeed.

Training in an Icy Land

2012-01-23T17:43:00.000+01:00

We had a fairly good amount of snow last Thursday...Austin's birthday...a granted wish of J. And then it snowed on Friday. Day time temperatures got up just enough to melt some snow but then temperatures dropped to freeze again. So on Sunday, after two late nights without good sleep, Austin and I were to go on a 20 km training walk.

We tried.

Honest.

Even though we were both really tired and just wanted to be in our pjs and play with the new tablet. First, we took Cooba, the dog we are sitting, for a small walk. And it was a good thing because we decided we needed the ice runners. Despite what Amazon says about the spectacularness, the front grips make their way up and so you only have spikes on your heel. So because this was happening multiple times in only a few minutes from leaving, we decided to head to Stokkavatnet. The trail around the lake is about 8 km. I thought we could do a couple laps. Well, that was icy too! We couldn't get into any kind of rhythm and work up speed because there was all kinds of ice! I am a little wary of spending too much time on the ice walking because I don't want to slip and hurt myself and not be able to do the walk. So, we ended up going back home. All in all we walked 2.5 km. Not quite 20. So, I spent 1.5 hours on our elliptical machine watching The Godfather. The movie really made it more bareable, but it was still sooooo booring. It was a good workout. My shoulders are a little sore. They should be fine tomorrow.

So why are we training? Along with 3 others, I am going to walk 100 km in 30 hours around the Yorkshire Dales. Austin is going to be on the support team which means he will help the others on the support team to have our break areas ready at the checkpoints and he may walk with us to give us some motivation! It will be exciting! You can donate here for Oxfam.

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For your enjoyment

2012-01-09T07:50:00.000+01:00

A week ago, we posted about our Christmas trip to Haukeli where we showed our adventures of skiing and sledding. And we directed you to see all the photos here. Well, for laughs, I animated one of the picture sequences.

Here Austin and I walk up the ski slope and then sled down.

We interrupt your program

2012-01-04T20:03:00.000+01:00

to bring you news that Lisa has been limiting herself to only 4 pfeffernusse cookies each day since receving the package from her Oma and Opa on Monday. At this rate, the cookies will probably last through Sunday. A picture would be posted but the obvious and gratuitous carnage may not be appropriate for even Prime Time news.

Thank you for you patience and we now return you to your normal program.

Christmas Holiday

2012-01-02T15:42:00.000+01:00

This year we went to Haukelifjell. Austin's work has an apartment/cabin out there and we won the lottery to go there this Christmas!

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We went with Young and Twist. I use to share an office with Young but now she actually works at the same company as Austin but she and Twist are now in Oslo. So here is a nice picture collection of our holiday.

We are dog sitting a very nice pup named Cooba.

We had lots of resting and reading.

We learned to make some Chinese dishes.

We enjoyed are picturesque view into the valley.

We skiied and sledded.

Twist getting ready to ski.

Austin on the small sledding hill going over the bump.

Lisa catching some air on the bump.

Cooba rolling in snow.

Austin on skis.

Young on skis.

Christmas Eve dinner.

Lisa on skis.

Young on skis.

Austin getting crazy with two sleds on the ski slope...not the little hill from before.

Young sledding on the ski slope.

Lisa and Austin sledding on the ski slope at the same time!

Obligatory self shot.

The birthplace of skiing - Morgedal.

The Olympic flame in Morgedal.

A snowy church along E134.

All bundled up in the car.

Langfoss waterfall on our drive home. One of CNNs top ten most beautiful waterfalls.

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And to see all the photos, go here.

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and here's to a happy 2012!

Marrakech: Days 7 and 8; Final thoughts

2012-01-01T19:35:00.000+01:00

Day 7: Medersa Ben Youssef, Alquouba Almoravides, Marrakech Museum, Souks, Spa, Too much Tajine

So, I'm getting a little burned out on posting about the trip. And I didn't write about this day while we were in Marrakech, so, it's gonna be mostly pictorial.

On our last full day in Marrakech, we had already made plans to spend the afternoon at a spa and then to have dinner at the riad. That left us for the better part of the morning to entertain ourselves. We went out first to buy a swimsuit for Austin. We tried but decided that we were too early for the shops since it was Friday and the noon prayer is the most important for Muslims. We figured it would be like Sunday in most cities in the states. Happily for us, museums were open. You can buy entry for three museums for 60 dirhams or you can only buy a museum entry for the Marrakech museum or the Medersa Ben Youssef each at 40 dirhams. So we decided to get all three since they are right next to each other.

The Marrakech Museum is pretty interesting. It's a beautiful old palace that now houses some modern art and some historical artifacts of the city.

This is the central court in the palace. It has several small rooms and some hallways off those rooms. In the center is a water fountain. The tiling and carving is gorgeous. The chandelier is very impressive.

This room housed a modern art exhibit. It is abstract because Islam does not permit or perhaps it's more accurate to say discourages the replication of life in art. So the paintings are lots of blendings of colors, but you understand what most are suppose to be. Sunsets, meadows, etc.

Here's Austin in a side room from the central court looking at some native Moroccan jewelry.

Then we headed across the street to the Qoubba Almoravides. It is an archaeological site showing some very old cisterns, latrines, and what I think are baths or steam rooms.

An old pipe.

Steam room or baths.

Then we went to the Medersa Ben Youssef. This is an old Koranic school that was very important for centuries for Moroccoa and possibly northern Africa. The school is now empty and is a museum. It is very cool because as a non-Muslim I cannot go into a mosque's prayer hall. The prayer hall here is impressive.

This is the central area with the ablution pool which leads into the prayer hall.

The school use to be home to 300+ students. The rooms were really small. Our guidebook compares them to monk cells. Some of the rooms had little loft-like structures and bunk beds.

Some of the rooms had tiny windows which looked out into tiny courtyards.

We walked around and looked at many of the rooms and enjoyed the architecture and artwork. Then we headed over the Bab Agnou. It is the only gate of the Medina that is carved wood.

After a strenuous 3.5 hours at the spa, where we had a hammam-style bath and scrub and a mud mask; a rose petal and oil bath in huge bathtubs!! These tubs were probably 7 feet long and 3 feet deep. They were filled up and covered in petals. To help you keep from floating up, there are foot bars to anchor yourself. Relaxing but we had a rose petal fight after about 5 minutes of soaking. Then we had an hour long massage. Between each service, we were placed in a relaxation room and served water and mint tea. At the end, we were given little cookies. It was so nice. We got back to our riad and rested a bit.

Then we went downstairs for dinner. Tons of food. Eggplant, an unknown green vegetable, bread, tajine...delicious. We ate too much. We ate so much in fact that Austin came up with a new food series and one of the episodes would be called Too Much Tajine.

This is caramel and almond over bananas. It was sooooo good.

Day 8: Final breakfast, Marche Couvert aka Mellah Market, Departure

Our final breakfast was just as nice as all the previous days. We had an array of Morracan breads, the honey pancake, mint tea, coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice, a delicious sweet milk yogurt thing, and plenty of little visitors who were very interested in our preserves.

After breakfast and settling our bill, we made one last foray into Marrakech. We went through the Marche Couvert which is also called the Mellah Market because it is next to the Mellah neighborhood. We walked through and saw stall after stall of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, dried fruits, meats, and a whole section of live poultry – chickens, geese, and roosters. There was a nice big olive stand and people were also selling various tajines. Now we know where all the rooster noises have been coming from. We didn't take any pictures of the market, but it's probably like you imagine. Small walkways, people, loads of colors. I wish we would have visited it earlier because it was really a sight. But now we have decided that we'll come back to Marrakech, rent an apartment, and shop at the Marche, making it our basecamp for other adventures.

We hit a small grocery and bought some candies to take to work. Then we walked back around the edge of the Marche to get to a little bakery we had passed. The cookies looked so tasty and I was hoping we had enough to buy a nice arrangement for our Christmas. The large assortments that were so eyecatching were more expensive than we had money for, so we just handed the shop keeper the cash we had and asked him to make us a box of assorted cookies for that price. He did and even gave us a few extra cookies. (And we did save them and eat them at Christmas!)

To see all the pictures from these two days start here and go to the end!

Last thoughts on our trip.

This was really an adventure. We are very glad we did it. There were frustrating times because you get the feeling that everyone is out to make a profit off you. And the truth is, many people are. So you have to budget that into your monetary funds, your patience, and your sense of humanity. However, people were really nice and even the guys who expected a tip from you wanted to teach you something about their neighborhood or culture.

I highly recommend the Riad al Badia, where we stayed. The staff and owner are so attentive and want you to enjoy yourself and to love Marrakech. On top of that, the location is superb – in a neighborhood close to several sights and not far from the action – maybe 10 minutes to J'em Fna and the Souks.

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Marrakech: Days 5 and 6

2011-12-31T15:01:00.000+01:00

Day 5: Souks

The problem with traveling is that it can be hard to judge what is a good price. So we decided to head to the government run artisan shop. There are two in Marrakech. These shops do not allow any haggling. They are fixed prices. We had an idea about things we would like to purchase and that the store would give us a good base line. We should aim for around the price of the government shop – more or less. Armed with this information, we headed into the souks.

Austin haggled. I hate haggling. I am most frustrated and annoyed by the dishonesty of the haggling process. The merchant starts with an unreasonably high amount, especially since we're obviously western. Then we have to get him down to something we feel is fair. Even our version of fair is higher than what a Morrocan would pay. I am okay with this to some degree, but not to the outright fleecing that occurs. We tried to purchase one small item. The merchant started the bidding at 120 dirhams. We saw the exact item in the government store for 45 dirhams. Austin was able to haggle for 40 dirhams. We learned later based on various haggling attempts at items, that the government store's prices are actually more than what you could haggle for and not be paying too little. It seemed like a fair deal. If you don't want to haggle, it doesn't mean you're getting the best price; you pay a small premium for the convenience. It's also important to understand that haggling is a process in Morocco and you can't immediately get down to business. People expected us to chit chat about ourselves; Norway's spectacular football star who we knew nothing about; skiing; the dark winter days but long summer nights; Marrakech; what we've been doing; how long we're there. And you can't get to your best price immediately either. So there is no quick purchase.

We bought a few items and then decided to wander through the souk and make our way to the tanneries. We were able to see some very cool areas in the souks where we saw the guys working on their wares. If it wasn't so awkward and if people wouldn't expect us to pay them for photos, I'm sure we would have taken several. It was mesmerizing, nonetheless. We eventually popped out in an area that we were not entirely sure where we were. Not surprising given the nature of the souks. We decided to head to Medersa Ben Youssef. We met a young man along the way who said that we could visit a real Koranic school just around the corner if we wanted. We say okay and he tells us. We began to walk on. Only a minute or two later he is at our side and saying we should follow him. He takes us on a tour of the area. Part of the area he shows us is exactly where the kids from our first day walked around. We saw the man who had schooled in Germany and I guess is kind of famous in the neighborhood for this. The guy showed us a baker like we had seen before. Then we took us to a weaver.

Obviously, we were suppose to buy from the weaver but we weren't really interested. Nice work, but not what we wanted. The shop is really as wide as you see in the picture. He had to crawl in and out through his loom. Eventually, the young guy takes us to a place and says the school is just around the corner there. And of course, he expects payment. We paid him, of course, but not what he wanted. He wanted us to pay him 200 dirham! We paid something near to half. Still way too much, especially since he did not take us to the school like he said he would.

Then we wandered around the area back and forth several times and decided we made it to the school. Another young man on a bike was trying to be a guide for us, but we weren't having any of it. Part of the fun in a new place is to get lost, find out where you are, and then find the place you want to go. It's very hard to do in Marrakech because the moment you look even slighly unsure, someone is there to try to give you directions. But we were able to get lost and more lost and find ourselves just to get lost again. We were almost to the tanneries (you forgot our goal, I know!) where we picked up another guide, who we didn't have to pay, and were dropped off at the tanneries. A man was there with mint for us and walked us through. The process of tanning leather for a natural color is 7 days in pigeon poop and they have a pigeon coop to collect the poop. 1 day in lime. And 7 more days in wheat. Just in case you were unsure, it stinks like hell in the tannery. Coloring the leather takes another 30 days for soaking. Of course the tannery guide took us to a leather shop where we bought a “poof” which is just an ottoman. We have been in the market for an ottoman for some time. Unfortunately, they wanted to charge us outrageous amounts for the two we wanted, so we only purchased one.

Then we paid our tannery guide and took a taxi back to our hotel area. The taxi driver was probably the most honest person we had contact with all day. We went back to the hotel for a short nap and to ask the hotel for recommendations for where to buy swimsuits because earlier in the day we had made reservations for a spa where we would need to wear swimsuits for the hammam portion. They directed us to the souks. This was another adventure. We asked store to store and they kept sending us further along. Eventually, a guy told us to follow him to a shop for the suit. At this point, we know we're gonna pay the guy and we're tired but we need a suit. The shop owner has to go to another shop to get the suits for me. He comes back we look at them. I pick one out. The shop owner says 550 dirhams. The swimsuit is probably Wal-Mart or less quality. I'm completely insulted and tired. Austin is tired too but he at least makes an attempt for haggling. I was ready to walk out almost immediately. It's in the interest of the merchant and the guide that some purchase goes down. Like I said, in Morroco there is a culture of haggling. You can't immediately settle on a price. It doesn't work that way. Our guide told me that I have to be patient and let them talk about the price. I'm too impatient; don't like haggling; tired; and am insulted at the outrageous price. Eventually, Austin and the merchant agree on a price. The funny thing was the merchant kept showing me the photo of the model on the package telling me what high quality the suit was. Pashaw. And he kept telling us that the Morrocan women pay 450 dirhams for the suit, which we didn't believe for a second. It just ruffled my feathers. Ugh.

Then we left and went to the Chez Chegrouni for a cheap dinner and a view of the J'em Fna from the side. The food was just passable but we were full and entertained.

We left the square to go to the Kosybar for a wine and then back to our hotel. On the way out, Lisa was basically assaulted by the henna ladies. One of the ladies got up from their line and grabbed her hand and held tightly and made a mark in henna. She had to forcefully draw her hand away and loudly say No. I don't see how this is at all a good selling tactic. Luckily Lisa had tissues in her bag and could wipe the henna away. Lisa has nothing against henna (see Texas trip in November), but had no intention to get henna that night and didn't want to walk around with drying henna all night.

Then we finally made it to Kosybar where we had some wine and briouettes before collapsing to sleep. Before total collapse, here is a photo of Lisa with the riad's Christmas tree.

Day 6: Atlas Mountains

We arranged with our riad to have a driver take us from Marrakech to the Cascades d'Ouzoud. It's about a 2 hour drive there. We stopped along the way at a carpet production and sales place. They had beautiful views.

Another stop was an herb garden and sales place. We took the little tour and the sales pitch. It was interesting, but we had already bought our stuff the other day.

And we drove. Here are the snow capped Atlas Mountains.

Then we made it to the beginning of the hike to the cascades. We hired a local guide. This is the river we had to cross.

Lisa and our guide, Abdel. He was from the area.

A shop we passed through and eventually came back and bought some items. This man was working on carving stone.

They call this a Berber Fridge. Bottles of drinks are cooled by springs.

We hiked on. This was maybe 30 minutes later. Up at the top is a little cafe. We had to go up there.

Here we are! The first of seven cascades. We only went to this one. After this, it required a bit more of climbing than Lisa wanted to deal with. According to Abdel, the first one is most impressive.

We saw some misguided women who came in inappropriate clothing; one young woman was even wearing a small, strapless summer dress - poor thing didn't know the mountains are actually cold and her bum shows when she climbs. Or maybe she knew. One woman took off her heels and was hiking in her nylons. I wonder how far she went. Our guide was even shaking his head at the sheer stupidity of some of the clothing choices.

We had a lunch in a local restaurant and then we went back to Marrakech. After a nap and a venture out to find Austin a bathing suit, we ended up back at the Kosybar. It was right there; easy to get to; nice view. This is the view over Place de Fourblantiers. Those are storks and stork nests along the walls of the Baadi Palace.

We acted very silly and had a good time. We finished our night with one of Lisa's favorite travel experiences: buying local potato chips. We ate Leader brand chili potato chips. We ate them all. We sat outside our room on the riad's terrace and ate our chips; continuing our silliness.

You can see all of the photos of these days starting here and ending here.

Marrakech: Days 3 and 4

2011-12-31T09:51:00.000+01:00

Day 3: Essaouira

We got up “early” to try to make it to the 8.30 am bus on SupraTours to get to the coastal town of Essaouira. We had to stop for money and breakfast at the riad is a big event, so we were unable to rush through. Then we walked to the caleche station, which is where all the horse-drawn carts are. The first guy wanted to charge us 150 dirh for a 10 minute ride and we knew this was outrageous, so we said no and walked away. Another man called to us and we went back. So we settled on 70 dirh for the ride to the bus station.

A shot of the man and his horses from behind.

Austin

Lisa

We got to the bus station and were told that the SupraTours bus already left, which we figured, but they were suppose to have more. Then we got on another bus, which made several stops along the way. Luckily, Lisa's high school Spanish came in handy. The guy who we bought tickets from understood English, but didn't speak it. So there was a mixture of languages spoken from our little crowd - English, Spanish, French, and Arabic!

There was a student riot in F'nis.

And some nice views along the way of olive groves, orange groves, and vineyards.

About half way through, we made a long stop where many passengers got off the bus to grab a bite to eat or take a smoke, where we saw these guys loading up their donkey truck.

Eventually, we made it to the town. We visited the port and the Skala. We had an edible pizza for lunch where the restaurant was the stomping ground for several cats.

We walked around the port and the old fort.

We walked through the souks and decided to wait to buy anything until Marrakech. Then we went to the bus station where we were hounded. When we finally said we had tickets already they left us alone. We waited for a time and finally asked a bus going to Marrakech if they were our line because several buses either did not have a name on the outside or were in Arabic. These guy took our tickets and gave us new ones. We figure they will go to the bus we bought the tickets from and ask for money.

Then we were on this bus for about 3 hours. As we got closer to Marrakech, someone on the bus started playing music. It started off with some Arabic music and then moved into rock n roll with the Scorpions, followed by the Eagles. It was kind of surreal.

From the bus, where we were hounded, don't we want to go to Fes? Where are we going? We tried to find a caleche to take us to the La Tajnier where we wanted to have dinner. We couldn't find a caleche so we decided on a taxi. This taxi driver had no idea where we were going even though we showed him a map. Perhaps he couldn't read English. We weren't sure. We told him several landmarks and he didn't know any of them. Or maybe he just didnt want to take us over there. Then another taxi took us and we haggled over the price to drive us. It was the same amount as the caleche from the morning. The guy was very nice and asked all kinds of questions and told us a bit about Marrakech. He had two or three wives and was expecting two more children (5&6) in two weeks! He said that it was okay to have up to four wives. He wondered about us. Were we married? Yes. Could Austin have many wives? No. Children? No. He was also a little surprised to learn that we know and like couscous. He was from Marrakech and seemed to like it. He took us directly to the Place de Ferblantiers. It was kind of a relief.

I felt the least fleeced from the bus system and this taxi driver seemed to be genuine.

Then we went to dinner. We had multi-course, multi-dish dinner. We started with about 12 little bowls of various foods and some briouettes. We ate most of this, but forgot a photo. Then they brought the main course. We decided to eat whatever they gave us. So a lot of meat.

The evening entertainment was live music followed by some belly dancers. One woman balanced a tray of burning candles on her head. I was most impressed with her. The other dancers were pretty and ranged from quite slim to more rounded but did not really dance in a way that I would call belly dancing. The music was much more modern. It was still entertaining and there were a few old guys who were tipping the dancers well.

We ate dessert, cinnamoned orange slices and little cookies followed by mint tea. Off we walked back to the riad where we both fell asleep very quickly to digest all that meat.

Day 4: Cooking and sight seeing

We arranged with our riad to have a cooking class. They set us up with La Maison Arabe. It was opened in 1953 and has become a very swank hotel. They have cooking classes, restaurant, spa, and other amenities that non-guests can partake.

The head chef, Wafa, was very nice and knowledgable. She told us a bit about Marrakech and Morrocan cooking. It is a medley of Berber, Arabic, French, and Morrocan. Each culture has left its own mark.

We made bread together, taking turns kneading it. Wafa took us to see a traditional baker. The one we visited is a master baker. A master baker has 10 years experience and can make no mistakes. The people in the neighborhood come and leave their own bread on pans wrapped in a distinctive cloth. The baker then bakes the bread; each person may have different types and different sizes and it is up to the baker to know how to cook it. It takes about 25 minutes from the drop off time, but the person can pick up the bread much later.

Each neighborhood has 3 neccessities: a baker, a hammam, and a mosque. All of your needs can be taken care of: physical, hygenic, and spiritual. The hammam is also a place to visit, so you have your social needs as well.

After we left the baker, we visited a tajine shop. There are tajines for baking which are made of clay and may be glazed; and there are tajines for serving which can have all kinds of decorations and even metallic accessories. These should never be used for cooking.

Then we moved on to the herb shop. This was quite some fun. The herbalist went through the main herbs and spices which come into every day life. The 35 spice mix which is spicy and is used for savory foods. The 45 spice mix which is sweet. Black cumin which can be crushed and put into muslin and inhaled for clearing the sinuses. This was truly amazing. Different kinds of tea, including one which is the Morrocan Viagra. Creams for wrinkles, dry skin, cold sores. Mix a teaspoon of cumin with some warm water and this will cure a stomach ache. Basically, if you have a problem, visit the herbalist and he will give you something to cure you in a natural way.

Then we went back to the hotel where we cooked our lunch. Fathi was the su-chef and she was a great. She was very sassy and full of attitude. We were cooking with a couple from Belgium. They'd been married for 4 or 5 years and were maybe 10 years older than us. It was very interesting. We learned a good amount about Belgium and plan to take a nice trip there.

Tajines. Austin made a peach lamb tajine and I made a lemon lamb tajine.

Salads. Eggplant and tomato salad and a green chili salad.

Mint tea. Now we know how to make it well, including the pouring!

We ate our cooking and we were all pleased, of course!

The dessert was very delicious but we didn't make it.

Then we went on our way. We visited the Koutoubia Mosque. It's the biggest mosque in Marrakech. It's very beautiful. We can't go inside (of any mosque in Morrocco) because we're not Muslim. So we settled for the outside and the garden.

We fell victims to a classic ploy. “Here take this. It's free. Take a bite.” and you take a bite. “That will be 10 dirhams each.” We made a fuss but paid only half and then through away the rolls. But this was the first guy to call Austin Ali Baba. It stuck.

I wanted to see the Mamounia Hotel. It's suppose to be gorgeous, but they would not let us in because we had on tennis shoes. The guy was really snooty and condescending about it. Our hotel owner said we should just try again if we are in the area. It can depend on the guard. We've already seen all we wanted in the area, so pooh on them. To be fair, it probably didn't help that I had a camera around my neck. The people who are paying 5000 dirhams per night probably don't care for the riff raff and tourists to come and peer in on them.

Then we started heading back to our riad. First, we decided to stop at the Saadian Tombs since they were on the way. The tombs are really quite gorgeous. The entry is very small.

The tombs were not publicly accessible until some years ago. There are royal persons buried here. The wood carvings are great.

The tiling is beautiful.

There was a guy working on the tile for restoration.

Right next to the Saadian Tombs is the Kasbah Mosque. The minaret is pretty. We could see some renovations happening through a side door. We weren't sure if it was actually open for worship.

Finally, we went back to our riad for a rest. After some rest, we headed back to J'em Fna and had a look around the square. We went to Cafe Glacier and paid way too much for mint tea but we had a great terrasse view of the square.

We were still so full from lunch that we decided to just get some nuts from the nut stand and head back for a quiet night in. We bought more nuts than anyone has business buying in one setting for two people. Salted almonds, salted peanuts, Boston peanuts. The guy swindled me on change, but he'll get his in the end.

Our night was very quiet. One of those nights where you just enjoy each other and laugh unstoppably for no real reason.

You can see all the pictures from these two days starting here and ending here.

Marrakech: Days 1 and 2

2011-12-29T17:42:00.001+01:00

Day 1
Arrival

We took a flight from Oslo to Marrakech on Norwegian Airlines. It was a good flight except for the fact that this guy moved from being the third person in an aisle seat to the same position in our row. The only difference was that now, instead of being beside the rest of his party (and across the aisle), he was now behind them. It was strange.

We arrived in Marrakech. Immigration was simple but we almost missed the forms for arrival. We grabbed a taxi and were told that it was a flat fee of 300 dh to get to the Medina. We thought it was too much, but we weren't really sure how to take it from there, so we accepted the rate. The taxi driver drove us and pointed out a few things here and there. I noticed that we passed the Baadi Palace which is near to where we are staying and thought he was just driving around a little. It didn't make much sense to me because we had agreed on a price. It turns out he dropped us off on the entirely wrong side of the Medina. Either the address we had wasn't correct or he didn't know where it was. But we didn't know this yet. He said just go in on this street and you'll find it. We went in and saw a few signs for riads, but they weren't ours. So we started walking more. Then these kids ask us where we're going and we show them and they start asking other people for directions. A gaggle of them are coming and going and eventually they lead us out of the Medina and across the major road to this little area. They tell us this is the street but there is no such address. I try to interrupt and tell them that this wasn't the place and the riad is in the Medina near the Baadi Palace. The lead kid tells me he has no quarrel with me and I told him I know. Austin is telling them this isn't the place and they try to tell us it is. Then they say, my brother has a riad. And we say, no, we already paid for our riad. Austin and I decide to just go back to the main street and either find a taxi or find something to show us where we are suppose to go. The kids now start asking us for money. They brought us to the address. We tell them when we get to the hotel, we'll pay them. No, they want to be paid now. I told them I had nothing to give and I thought they were just being nice. To which the leader kid says they are not nice. We just shrugged our shoulders and walked away. The kids start insulting us and yelling at us. Telling us we're crazy. A couple insults were meant for me: you're not sexy; you have a big ass. I thought if that's the worst that they can do, then that is fine.

So we cross the street and go back into the Medina. A man tries to pickpocket Austin. The guy is even starting to put his hand in Austin's pocket but Austin grabbed his hand and said No. We went to a horsedrawn cart and ask the guy if he can take us. Another man who speaks English came and says let's go to the internet and get the address. This seems like a reasonable idea, so I say yes. But then I remember the kids and say, where? Then No. Austin and I go back and walk along the outside of the Medina. I know that the hotel is near the Baadi Palace and if we just get to there, we'll find our riad. So we walked and walked. Eventually, we stopped and decided to try for WIFI on one of our phones. It was spotty, but it worked. We found an email from the riad manager telling us some directions. So we copied the email text and his contact info into a note on the phone. Then we consult our map and off we go. It took a bit of time and we frequently stopped to check the map and our surroundings, make sure we were going the right way. We stopped and ask guards for directions and they helped us some. Although, we wanted the Berima Mosque and they sent us to the Kasbah Mosque. Close, but we needed to go further. So we went further and eventually, we found our riad. By this point, we were making no eye contact with others, rebuffing people who asked if we need help. One guy we passed when we were close to the Kasbah Mosque, called out “Hey Big Shot!” and he later followed us a little asking if we need directions. Another guy we passed near the Baadi Palace we ignored, but I saw that a passerby who was older reprimanded the guy. I figure we walked between 8 and 10 kilometers.
As we got closer to the riad, there were some kids who were wanting to show us the way. Unfortunately, they were at this point on the short end of our patience through no fault of their own, and we just kept on walking. But a few followed us to make sure we actually found the riad and then went on their way.

We were welcomed in our riad with Morocan mint tea which is incredibly refreshing and some homemade pastries. We relaxed and the manager showed us the area on a map (which we were already familiar with) and then showed us around the hotel grounds. We hung out in our room for a while. Then decided to have dinner. We went to the Kosybar and arrived 1.5 hours before the kitchen opened. So we had a drink. Surprise! The Medina does have alcohol. I was prepared for a dry holiday. Then we had a second drink and ordered dinner. It was delicious. Scallops with a chili sauce and a tajine with fish, peppers, tomatoes, olives, and lemons. We also had these little breads that we've tried to make at home. We decided we want to ask the hotel for a cooking class. The tajine tasted like a snapper dish with tomatoes from a restaurant in Austin that we can't remember the name and it seems all their locations have closed. That's sad to learn - it was my favorite. The Koutoubia Mosque minaret looked strangely like the UT Tower. The other restaurant visitors were English and Norwegian. So it was kind of funny to have so much of home around us.

Walking back to the riad, there is a small square where there are a couple of little kiosk shops. The kids play ball or hackey sack in this area. As we walked in there were some small kids playing soccer and I stopped the ball. I'm not sure if the same kids rushed around the corner or if it was a new group but they asked if we played football. And we went on.

Day 2: Sight seeing
On Sunday, we went out to take our time with the different sights. We had an elaborate Moroccan breakfast at the riad. Coffee, mint tea, a sweetened yogurt, honey “pancakes”, several different kinds of Moroccan breads, and straight up ciabatta. We were served butter(!) and three kinds of preserves for including on our breads.

After a nice leisurely breakfast, where I unwittingly stole coffee and milk from the table next to ours, we took some photos from the rooftop. Then we went off to see the Baadi Palace. It was super cheap to enter (10 dirh which is the same for all the museums so far). Upon entering there was this old man who was explaining that he could be our guide and tell us all about the palace. There are little signs in place and we had a guide book, so we declined. After our decline, he said we could not follow him, we were not allowed. He made sure we understood this by our saying okay and then he walked away burping. It was comical. We took our time walking around and taking photos.

We took a foray into J'em Fna to make sure we knew the way. We walked around the square to get an idea and stepped into the big souks to get a taste of the madness, which we both decided we were not ready for. The sellers all call to you as you pass and it is really noisy and hard to shop.

By this time, we were looking at around noon and we were thinking these places would have taken much longer to see. So we sat in Place de Ferblantiers for a small stretch deciding what we should do. Neither of us were hungry and we had bottles of water. After watching the people come and go and the ladies try to sell bangles, Then we went off to see the Bahia Palace which was built by the brother of the sultan who built the Baadi Palace. There is a nice long garden entry.

Beautiful tiling and woodcarving throughout.

It was really beautiful.

Then we moved through the souk Bab Salem (?) where a lot of donkey carts were holding up traffic. Then we made our way out to see the Mellah which is the old Jewish neighborhood. I am not sure we ever actually found it. The small streets can be winding and confusing. Of course, if you're in the Medina and you hit a wall, you know you've gone as far as you can. We walked up and down a few streets and then headed back through the souk. When we got out we decided to go to Dar Si Said Museum. The owner of this dwelling was also related to the Bahia Palace owner. Before we went there, we decided to head through another little souk and eat at the Earth Cafe. There are several of these in the Medina and we're not sure they are really the same restaurant. We had vegetarian burgers which were lentils mashed with other ingredients served atop various vegs.

Then we head back through the souk to Dar Si Said. We didn't take photos here because we saw signs prohibiting it.

Then we went back to the riad for a rest. We hung out for a few hours, napping, reading, planning, and then we headed back to the J'em Fna for dinner. At night the square opens up into a big restaurant with tens of food stalls. The guide book said over 300, but I doubt that There were fortune tellers, story tellers, henna ladies, snake charmers, moneky trainers. We finally settled on a little food stall on the end that was run by two old men who did not have a customer grabber trying to coax people in. They just served up food for us although all I wanted was the eggplant and fries, we also got some fish and squid --- all fried up. It was a little unsanitary. If someone didn't like what they got, the guy just threw the food back into the serving dishes. It was an experience. A few little girls came by to sell us napkins and they had these big doe eyes. It was hard to say no and ignore them.

After dinner, we walked around a little more to see if we could find the transvestite belly dancers, but they must come out later. Then we went back to our hotel. On walking back, we decided to stop at the Kosybar for a drink. It was super smoky outside and we figure it is from all of the food stalls and bbqing happening. Meanwhile, a young person started having either some kind of fits or was having a bad trip. A large group of people moved the person from outside the square into the square and just huddled around trying to keep watch. The person would calm down a bit and then go off into these screams that would bring people running up. One person kept trying to put this fit person on a bench and this would work for a while before the person thrashed out and was on the ground. We're not sure what ended up happening. But there were plenty of people around to help and to gawk.

You can see all of the photos from the first two days by starting here and stopping here.

Sinterklaas Poem 2011

2011-12-06T14:40:00.000+01:00

Exciting things this year
Brought us lots of cheer.
Some things made us sad
And we needed time to be glad.
Our friends and family make us happy
And we love you all dearly.
Have a happy holiday
Filled with fun and play!

And just for kicks, enjoy this card from The Oatmeal.

Christmas Time is Here!

2011-12-04T09:28:00.000+01:00

Amazingly, it's already December! November just flew on by! Normally, I am a huge planner, but this year, I was RSVPing and sending invites for things unusually late. Despite the fact that I had written our Christmas cards crazy early, I still haven't managed to mail them. We almost mailed them yesterday but we were running out of time to prepare for our Christmas party. Due to the fact that I sent invites out less than a week ahead of time, only one family was able to come.

But first, work Christmas parties. Austin's work and my department at the uni both had their parties on Friday night. My work party started at 4pm when the proper work day ends and Austin's work party began at 7pm. I left my other work and went to the uni arriving about 4:30pm. I love this department party. We sit in our lunch room. One or two of my colleagues cooks or prepares all of the food. It's a very nice julebord. Julebord is like a smorgasbord (you've heard the word and it's real!). This is a table that is covered in many kinds of dishes. You can go and get a bit of this and a bit of that. Like a buffet. So the difference between a smorgasbord and a julebord is that a julebord is a smorgasbord for Christmas. There was a leg of lamb (Chef! A whole leg!), slices of Spanish style ham, shrimp dishes, fish dishes, veg dishes, pasta dishes, potato dishes...a lot of food and a lot of variety. There was also the annual Christmas beer blind tasting. And another of my colleagues brought 3 kegs of his home brews. Beer brewing is his hobby and he gets together with some friends to make it. Another colleague is in charge of music and this year he queued up a playlist on Spotify. Everyone just eats and talks and enjoys the company of each other. Around 6pm, the akevitt made its round.

Then I had to change and rush to catch the bus since I was already going to be 1 hour later than I intended. I met up with Austin who had gone to a preparty at a colleague's house. Then I met him at the bus station where we walked to Gamla Vaerket. It's a small hotel with a bakery. It use to be part of a brick making factory which was established in 1783. Sandnes is known for all kinds of baked wares...bricks, ceramics, glass bird flutes. This place was very unique. The first hour or so was a socializing time, then we were all seated for dinner. We had a very nice meal. A first course was awaiting us at the tables. Then we had a buffet which is probably more accurately a julebuffet. While eating and drinking to your hearts content, there was a 3-person band who came around.

They're singing Aqua's Barbie Girl. The accordian player sang the Barbie part and the bass player sang Ken's part. Very entertaining.

We were also entertained with a cigar "room" which was really the patio on the 5th floor. It was fun to stand out with some folks talking, smoking, and shivering. At least I was shivering. There was a casino where we played some roulette for a bit. We also lost all of our chips. It was fun for a bit. Then we danced. We enjoyed ourselves except for the 2 guys who thought that they should use the entire dance floor for their own amusement of twirling and throwing their partners around. It was a makeshift dance floor and was very small. So bad form on those men's parts. Upon the encouragement of others at the party, we tried to get a room at the hotel, but they were all booked up. So we took a cab home, which is just as well. We slept until 10am and were able to have a slow start to our day.

We quickly needed to speed things up for our Christmas party. Austin made eggnog and ceviche. I made wassail and oatmeal scotchies. For me, it's not Christmas unless you have eggnog and wassail. The food is really up to what you feel like. When we lived in Texas, I loved to eat the pfeffernusse cookies because they remind me of my childhood, but I can't find them here. The Norwegians like a very thin and crispy version called pepperkaker...they are gingersnaps. Not quite the same cake-like, airy texture.

I also decided to make a pepperkakehus. It's a gingerbread house, but it uses the thin pepperkaker. I clearly did not inherit my mom's baking artisanry.

I made the icing like my mom did when I was a kid...butter, powdered sugar, and water. Because of the butter shortage in Norway, we had to use margarine. It was all clumpy. Clearly I missed something. The "glue" is just melted sugar. It was very awesome to work with. I thought we were buying gumdrops, but they are something else and more jelly inside.

As the night wore on, the roof slowly caved in and there was finally a full collapse and demolishing.

A few of our ornaments were lacking hanging devices.

So "Donder" is in the garland. The grinch is in a tree.

And ET is hanging out with the avocado plant.

Here you can see the julenisse and our lighted garland. Last year, the garland was our tree.

A view from the other direction. Our stockings.

And our new tree. Depending on where you hang the ornaments and how much they weigh will affect the layout of the tree.

And my new slippers from my parents. They are keeping my feet toasty.

A cookie inside a cookie

2011-11-13T13:51:00.000+01:00

After seeing this come up on my entertainment list, I decided to make them. It was super easy.

I started with a box mix of chocolate chip cookies. It was even Betty Crocker brand!

The dough is pretty stiff, so it was easy to flatten out small section and then pack the dough around the Oreos.

Here they are cooking. Obviously, I need to clean my oven.

Take them out after 10-12 minutes as the cooking directions say because they continue to brown and cook after you remove them from the oven.

I'm convinced the picture from the link above was taken after the cookies cooled down. Here is a shot of them still hot. The Oreo is a bit more melty.

Austin is really enjoying that cookie.

And apologies to folks at Austin's work. We decided not to share, although, probably, we should have.

Parsley

2011-11-05T12:43:00.000+01:00

The Chef gave me a book a few years ago called The Supper of the Lamb. It's really a very good book - part meditation on life, food, and religion and part cook book - written by a minister. The main recipe in the book which is part of the thread of the meditation is cooking a leg of lamb over four meals for eight people. If you haven't read it, I really suggest it goes at the top of your reading list. I may have even mentioned it before in the blog. I've read it twice now - rereading a book is unusual for me. It's timeless to me since it was written in 1967 and my copy is marked up and noted with tabs. One of those books that's been passed around from person to person. I like it. It gives it a kind of nostalgic feel.

One of the stories the author relates is about a dinner party early in his marriage. He and his wife prepared all day for the meal. For this dinner party the author wants to have fried parsley with all nicely crisped leaves and bound together. So his wife, I think it is, does the frying and is entirely stressed out about making it properly only to find out that it won't get eaten! The wife never makes the fried parsley again.

We were making eggplant Parmesan Friday night for dinner. Oh, it's delicious and so easy! We need parsley for seasoning. We had a large bunch still left from our last parsley needs. I never understand why parsley comes in such large bundles. Who eats that much? But I digress. We had schloads left. I suggested we try to fry some of the leftover parsley. And we still have a lot of parsley left.

On its own, the fried parsley is not so great. With a little salt and tossed on the eggplant Parmesan with bulghur wheat, it tastes like dried seaweed (go to an Asian market if you don't know it). It could probably have also been fried just a little less. While the seaweed is in the oil, it looks much greener and then it gets almost black when you take it out.

So get yourself a copy of the book, read it, and enjoy some eggplant.

Eggplant Parmesan

1 eggplant, sliced into 1-2" thick circles

1 chunk fresh mozzarella, sliced

freshly grated Parmesan

1 small jar of a marinara sauce of your choice

salt

parsley, fresh and chopped

thyme, fresh and chopped (or dried)

rosemary, fresh and chopped (or dried)

olive oil

butter

Heat your oven to 500F/260C

Place an ovenproof pan on your stove at high heat

Heat up

Mix together some olive oil, parsley, thyme, rosemary

Pour in a generous amount of olive oil and heat

Take each circle of eggplant and use a spoon or fork to put the olive-herb mix on one side

Place in pan

Repeat

When all the circles are in the pan, use the remaining olive-herb mix to coat the tops

By now your bottoms should be nice and brown

Flip the eggplants

If you were not generous enough with the oil, pour in some more. You don't want your eggplants to stick.

After browning for about 1 or 2 minutes, remove from heat.

Spoon sauce on the eggplants and between them.

Place mozzarella on each eggplant

Top with parmesan

Top with little bits of butter

Bake for about 10 minutes

Serve hot (but give a minute or two to cool) over rice, pasta, or bulgur wheat.

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T11:01:00.000+01:00

see more Comixed

I am always wincing when I open those!

Or Happy All Saints Day! I'm a little late for Halloween. And it was very anti-climactic here in Norway. People don't really celebrate it. There are parties and they sell costumes, but I don't think there's any trick or treating. Actually, some people are a bit irked that such a commercial holiday is starting to encroach on the society here. I don't really care one way or the other since we didn't celebrate Halloween when I was a kid. There was no missing out on the candy though! We just didn't dress up and go door-to-door. Well, I did finally, but I was pretty old - 14 years old? Then when I moved to Austin either there were no kids who came by (hello, apartments!) or there were so few who came, we'd be eating candy for weeks! But those kids who did come would get large handfuls. So, back to the present... Since I'm American, people expect me to really love Halloween and to miss celebrating it or get excited about it. In fact, I didn't even really notice it came and went, except for the party over the weekend a friend had that we weren't able to attend. Really, that could be any time of year for a good costume party!

Glad jazz

2011-10-31T14:42:00.000+01:00

Every Saturday this fall from 14.00 to 17.00, there is a jazz concert at the Hovmesteren in the Skagen Brygge Hotell. This Saturday we had the chance to go. It was pretty nice. Young joined us for the fun.

A little video of the band. We decided this song was in Norwegian.

They were out of hot water for our second drink (no tea!), so Young ordered us strawberry daquiris (sans alcohol since I was driving) and a beer for Austin. They look as yummy as they tasted.

However, we learned this is the senior citizen activity. We were by far the youngest people there. By decades. It was still fun. And it was entertaining(?) to see the elderly Norwegians having their social drinking so early on a Saturday. I figured it's because they probably go to sleep early. That or they don't want to be bothered by the whipper-snappers in the evenings.

Training for the Oxfam Trail Trekker

2011-10-30T16:58:00.004+01:00

Recently Lisa signed up to hike 100km as part of Oxfam Trail Trekker 2012. I, being the loving husband that I am, have agreed to a) work on the support team for the hike and b) train with her so that she can...you know...walk 100km and stuff.

In that spirit, today we did our first practice hike, from home to Sandnes. We clocked in at about 14.6 kilometers in 2h22m, or about 6.14km/h. Obviously this is a far cry from 100km, but we figure she's got 6-7 months to get into fighting trim. We were both pleased that we managed to do it without any major problems. Our plan to is to incrementally increase the distance until we're doing long enough distances that 100 seems doable...I think we'll leave an actual 100km hike until the event itself!

Today's route was fine, though a little pedestrian (rimshot!) Importantly, it ended near a bus station so we could ride home :) As things progress we'll need to find new and exciting places to do our training: around Stokkavatnet, along the Nordsjøruta, maybe out to Tungenes. Here's the map from day:

View To Sandnes in a larger map

Tall Ships 2011

2011-10-19T13:37:00.000+02:00

Another old event.

The Tall Ships Race is an annual event, but it doesn't always come to Stavanger. Basically, a bunch of tall ships and other kinds of sailing ships and boats race from a starting point in the UK to an ending point in Sweden with stops in the UK, Norway, and Denmark. It was lots of fun, especially to see the ships pulling into the harbor which started on Wednesday and would then depart on Sunday. Each day there was live music, food, and a small market.

While taking photos, there was a serious case of lens envy. So much so, that Lisa asked a complete stranger in mangled Norwegian to see if she could look through his camera and giant lens.

We saw the ships come into the harbor on the first night and watched a prog-rock band called D'AccorD. The Dame joined us and alerted us to the fact that the lead singer's father was at the table next to us. We also learned that "having tea" meant he had dinner.

Lisa was a little hesitant about the prog rock band and really wanted to see the Johnny Cash cover band, The Cashual Tennessee Studs, that was coming after, but was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining and good D'AccorD were. Of course, the flute-playing lead singer added to the fun. The Cashual Tennessee Studs even came with some Mariachis, but they had to sing Ring of Fire a few times to make it worth the effort. Because really, how much work does a Mariachi get in Stavanger?

Repairing the ship. Kids can pay to go on the race where they learn about sailing, responsibility, cultures, and other good stuff. I think these ladies are regular crew though.

A tall ship coming in by tug boat.

Sadly, the Utøya and Oslo tragedy happened only days prior, actually at the end of Gladmat (only 6 days prior). Three days before the Tall Ships Festival was planned, there was a march for peace in Stavanger. Flowers, stuffed bears, and candles were placed in front of the Domkirke in the sentrum. So you can see that life continued, but there was a subdued manner about the festivals.

On Sunday, the tall ships were scheduled to depart from Stavanger. A great viewpoint is Tungenes fyr, which is the most northern point of land in the area of Stavanger. All the ships have to make this bend to get back out to the North Sea from the harbor. So Austin, Artemis, and I got in the car and drove out. We arrived really early. We watched the private boats gather which the locals were in to see the ships off. Sometimes it looked like pure madness.

For all the photos and some poor quality videos, go here.

Gladmat 2011

2011-10-19T12:34:00.000+02:00

This is quite old, but it was lots of fun.

Every July, Stavanger has a food festival - Gladmat. It means something like Happy Food Festival. It's all about food. It lasts 4 days. We love this festival because there is an Ethiopian vendor that comes every year. This year they toned down their spice, but it was still tasty. Hopefully, next year they crank it back up. Of course, there are many local eateries that set up shop. This year, there was a very tasty and lively vendor called Barrio Latino.

There were these ladies who were dancing and playing instruments. I'm not sure if they were part of the booth or just having a good time. These guys had great ceviche which made us go out and make it the next week. Lisa ate some chorizo that was especially good. I mean, chorizo is almost bacon, right? And we all know bacon is a vegetable.

Then we headed over to the Lervig tent or maybe we were at Lervig first. We did make multiple visits to the festival, which means multiple visits to Lervig. Lervig is a local brewery here in Stavanger with an American brewmaster. We went on a brewery tour a few months back and it gave us a little bit of pride about them being only 5 minutes from our place. So, the Lervig tent had live, local musicians playing each day. We had no idea who they were or anything. Here is a local rapper named Atlars (f you follow the link and watch the video, you will see he mostly shot around Stavanger). He's been around since 1999.

There was another band we watched named Poor Edward. Two brothers who play "melodic pop songs with a folk sensibility." Check out their site to hear their music.

You can see all the photos and some poor videos here.

Hiking to Bakken: An Attempt

2011-10-16T10:34:00.000+02:00

Way back in January, I bought Austin a family membership for the Stavanger Turistforening for his birthday. The plan was that we would take advantage of the discounts and access for hyttes and courses over the year. The big plan was to make a hiking trip so that in the day we'd hike and then arrive at a hytte and stay the night. The nice thing about some of these hytter is that they come stocked with food and you just have to note what you ate and pay for them. It keeps you from having to pack in and out food, which can really weigh a lot. So this is the pre-story.

Fastforward to September. I sat down with a topographic map from the Turistforening while Austin was in India and planned a hiking trip for us. We would take the ferry from Stavanger to Tau, drive to the Preikestolen base camp, hike all day to Bakken, stay in the hytte there, and return home the next day. I measured it out and figured it was about 12 kilometers (~7.5 miles) one way. So we figure this is no problem.

Yesterday, we got up at 5:30, got ready, made sure the world knew our plans, and arrived at the ferry station with plenty of time to spare for the 6:30 ferry. It's a 40 minute trip, so we wanted to make sure we arrived at Preikestolen base camp early. That way there'd be plenty of time for messing around and getting ready before sunrise, which is about 8:15 now. Sunset is about 18:30 and so that gave us about 10 hours for the hike.

We planned to have breakfast on the ferry but the cantina was closed. They did have coffee, but we already had our coffee. 20 minutes after we landed in Tau, we arrived at the Preikestolen base camp. At the Preikestolhytte we were able to get a very hearty breakfast for a surprisingly cheap price, all things considered.

Here's Austin at the car all ready for the hike. Notice we even have hiking poles now!

We started the hike. The beginning of the hike follows the same path that everyone takes to Preikestolen and to Moslifjellet, as well as to Bakken and several places in between. This is a view into Refsvatnet.

Here's a sign along the beginning of the trail which tells about the ascent, but more importantly as the zoom in shows, not to wear high heels or sandals.

There was great variation in the path. Some parts were very rocky and others were rocky but in an organized way, like this.

And some parts had wooden bridges across because of the swampy, boggy landscape.

This is a picture of us at the trail split.

The sun started to burn through the clouds. We tried to capture the sun glinting off the rock face in the far distance, but couldn't quite. We need a better zoom lens!

So, we started off on a path which is an official foot path, but it wasn't our trail. Austin is trying to figure out where we are exactly. We thought that perhaps the beginning of the path was unmarked.

Eventually, we realized our mistake, turned around, went back to the split, and found the real trail. Then we descended into a valley. After some descent and a bit of a walk, we came to a waterfall.

We kept hiking further and came to this little pond. It has no name on our topo map, but is in the area called Indre Neverdalsskar (roughly translated as "Inner Bark Valley Cut"). From here, we hiked further on and up alongside Troppeknuten where we lunched on canned sardines, bread, pretzels, and bananas. We decided that we had grossly miscalculated the time it would take us to hike all the way to Bakken and that it would be best if we turned around. The mountains in the background are on the other side of Lysefjord.

Here we are again at the split. After hiking back from Troppeknuten. This little bird kept fluttering around and I kept trying to photograph him. He's much closer than the photo makes out.

For all the photos, go here.

And here's a map of our adventure.

Vis Bakken attempt i et større kart

Some overdue items

2011-10-12T21:01:00.001+02:00

Well, here are some long overdue items.

Here's a craft project from before Christmas 2010. I bought a small zipper pouch. Hand-stitched a collection of beads around the logo.

Added a nice pendant for the zipper handle. I have had to redo the attachment a few times since I didn't choose a strong enough metal "string" and I hope tonight's version works well.

Used a green glitter iron-on patch to protect the stitches on the inside.

And that's my new travel bag for toiletries. It's nice and small and has forced me to rethink what I take when I travel. After this, I made a little pouch for The Architect that followed a similar project type. I bought a small purple and reddish pouch: ironed on an elephant patch; made little stitches around the edge of the elephant to keep him on; cut out a silver glitter elephant silhouette and ironed it on. I don't think I stitched on any beads for that one. I can't remember. I may not have because it may have been overboard.

We had a taco pizza. It's what happens when one person wants tacos for dinner and the other wants pizza. We always use store bought pizza dough and start it off by cooking it a little. Put your salsa of choice as the first layer. We don't have many options. Old El Paso is the best one we can get. Most salsas are too sweet. We had this in August some time, I think.

Chop up mushrooms and cook them in taco seasoning. Probably also Old El Paso brand here.

Top with cheese and black beans. Bake for the rest of the dough cooking time. And Voila! A taco pizza.

And to make sure you get some veggies, have a salad on the side.

Serve with chips, jalapenos and a beverage of your choice.

Another cooking adventure started off as trying to make an apple tart. This happened in September when I was working only 2 days a week. But all the recipes required apple sauce and I have not been able to tell yet what's actually apple sauce in the store. Nothing looks like apple sauce to me. So, I decided to make something similar, but different. A bag of cherry compote and pie crust later, I created little cherry-apple tarts! Here they are precooked. I sauteed the apples a little. I used red because that's what I had and they were getting too soft to just eat.

And after the baking! These are in our cute little tart pans we bought in Paris. One tart is enough for two people.

Pie with ice cream and extra compote for topping.

This one happened just last week or maybe the week before. I went grocery shopping in the morning. This one grocery store always has some of the "strange" fruits in town. It's where you are sure to buy mangos, papayas, pineapples, and some others. I kept seeing this fruit and finally bought it. It's a grenadilla. It's awesome. It looks gross.

Really. Those little seeds look wrapped in snot. And the inside looks like some strange alien.

I recommend you eating one. Just use a spoon and it comes out really easy. I was so excited about this fruit that when Austin got home I wouldn't even let him finish his "just got home" routine and stood in front of him with a spoon feeding it to him. I don't think I've ever done *that* before. I got another fruit called the African cucumber and also it's known by another more exotic sounding name, melano or horned melon. It was just as freaky looking on the inside, though less snot-like in texture it was green. I didn't like it so much.

We bought a crazy coffee table.

Yes those are Egyptians walking around the bottom. And yes, you see chariots racing after rabbits in the middle. It's wood and painted with black and a coppery metallic paint. The table top is actually carved with the scene. It's crazy. It's awesome. It goes wonderful with the black couch. The pillows are actually from J's trip to China in 2006 or 2007.

Austin built a work table and I painted it. We got some stools to go with it. Eventually, we're going to build shelves and have a proper work room with storage in our basement. The very awesome curtain is from Fretex and cost all of 20 nok. It actually matches the table though it wasn't planned.

I learned Nugati goes well with banana. Nugati is like Nutella but I think it's tastier.

I finally got my diploma but it looks fake. It's really just printed out on regular paper. At least it's a real signature. I'm just disappointed in the lack of quality paper or seal or embossing.

I know there's more, but I think you've seen enough for one day.

Prepping for a wedding

2011-10-09T15:00:00.000+02:00

In November, we're going to a wedding for Mr. Spillman and Enero. We're really looking forward to it. It'll be 3 days long with several ceremonies. I've been in the wardrobe design stage for several months. One very nice dress for the formal part and a party dress for the reception. But another outfit is needed for the daytime ceremonies.

This is the formal dress from Agape. I'm not wearing the hat and the color I have is a little more orange. The shoes are a hard part though. Austin will have a matching tie and kerchief in a brown suit. He just got new brown shoes. We've got a few things at the tailor's so that the straps on the dress can get adjusted and Austin's pants get hemmed.

The other outfit has been seen before...I wore it to my brother's wedding rehearsal dinner but I can't seem to find any photos of me from that night. It's a cute dress. Black and cream. Appropriate for a night event.

Excuse the rotations...I'm lazy. Here are a series of dresses that I've tried on and shared via Twitter and Facebook. I had a few color restrictions for the dress: no black, white, or red; and it needs to be day time appropriate.

From Esprit.

From H&M.

From KappAhl.

From Noa Noa.

From Vero Moda or BikBok or one of those stores.

I ended up getting the blue dress from Noa Noa. I have this dark blue shawl with embroidered light blue flowers on the edges that I bought in Greece in 2001. I've been waiting to actually own something I can wear it with! (I'm not a pack rat! I swear!) But a couple of these dresses I plan on buying just to have (like the brown and blue one from Esprit). I forgot how awesome Esprit actually is and now I know about Noa Noa. Love.

A new job

2011-10-05T11:05:00.000+02:00

So, you may or may not know the complicated situation of Lisa's work. Brief summary. Last 6 years working on a research project which moved from UT to Univ. of Houston. Funding obligations between UT and Univ. of Stavanger ended at the end of August. While the project is still going, there are a few funding glitches and so Lisa is no longer on the project. But her boss here in Stavanger did help find her some funding in the department so she is working 2 days a week. In the summer, knowing there was the possibility of no job, she applied for a couple of jobs. So, this past month, Lisa has been interviewing with 2 places. Fortunately, she was given offers from both places. A very tough decision to make but she accepted one of the offers. For now, she's working 2 days a week at the university and starting in a couple of weeks, she'll work 3 days a week at the new place until her university contract ends in February.

On her days off, Lisa has been keeping herself busy with various projects and promise there will be some photos soon of the projects, some exciting things that happened over the summer, and also just some fun food stuff.

Project Gutenberg

2011-09-29T08:04:00.000+02:00

I was saddened to read in the Economist that Michael Hart has passed away. Mr. Hart was the creator of Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg makes out-of-copyright publications freely available. They rely on donations and volunteers to make these documents available.

Please, if you have time, read the Economist article (linked above). Mr. Hart truly had an enormous dream that is not to fruition yet.

If you have the money or the time, please donate to Project Gutenberg.

You can download the books to a variety of reading devices.

Consolations and imaginations

2011-09-24T09:06:00.000+02:00

Last night, I was out having dinner with a couple girlfriends - Lady of the North and Young. Lady of the North offered her condolences about Artemis because this is the first time we've seen each other in a while. I accepted them and told her that perhaps she and The Geologist should tell their kids before the next time they came over, that I'd be happy to go along with whatever they tell the kids. Lady of the North and Young looked at me quite confused and I said, "You know, Artemis lives on a farm now." To which they both nodded in understanding. Young thought it particularly funny though. She grew up on a farm in northern China and probably wondered why anyone would think that sending a dog to live on a farm would be pleasant. Lady of the North said that the kids believe Artemis is in heaven. Young said something that gave me this vision of Artemis with wings flying around in the clouds.

Teaching

2011-09-20T09:36:00.000+02:00

I love teaching. Really. It's absolutely awesome.

And it was really awesome that one of my students told me they like the geocache assignment I had them do as part of learning to read maps and navigate with them.

Despite the idea that I want to have grandiose ideas about being an inspiring teacher, I do get some criticism and I'm trying my best to listen and change those items the students don't like. I have listened from the previous courses, lightening the load (an American in the Norwegian system...assigning too much work), giving more time for presentation preparation. Now I need to be clearer about their assignments and what I expect of them. And give them higher resolution images because the images from a few assignments were downgraded -- kind of important when you need to read the little numbers on a map. The students like my "open door" policy. I guess it's kind of new for some of them.

The hardest part about teaching, though, isn't the critiquing, the standing in front of a group of young people trying to get them inspired about mapping!, but grading their homeworks. I want everyone to get a really good grade and I know they work hard -- or at least I'm hoping they are based on their answers. It's hard for me to give them less than very good grades unless they really mess up on the assignment. And even then though, I think maybe I didn't explain it enough.

So a little aside here to explain what it means to be an American lecturer in the Norwegian system. Most courses don't have weekly assignments or multiple tests. There is a weekly or however often scheduled course with lectures. The only grade is a final exam where the students are tested over the entire semester's material. If the student passes the test, they move on. If they don't pass the test, then they enroll again and take the test again. In this department, there are several lecturers who teach in a "foreign" style. I'm one of these. We don't give a final exam because if a student fails the final, he/she doesn't have to do all of the coursework again, just the final exam, and anyway, the student doesn't really have to do the coursework if there is a final exam, just pass that and move on. So, we give weekly or monthly assignments, depending on the course. Maybe presentations or one or more tests. The students aren't use to it. They find our courses are a lot of work, but they seem to enjoy them, I hope. So this year, my students have a nearly weekly assignment and then they will read a paper and make a presentation to the class about it, but no tests or quizzes. Last year I overloaded them with assignments, quizzes, tests, and a presentation. Poor guys.

Summary of travels and goings on

2011-09-18T17:22:00.000+02:00

So, just real short to keep the world in the loop of our travels.

I went back to the States of 12 days. I flew into Houston, rented a car, drove to Austin. Spent three days with my parents; visited old work friends for lunch at a veggie Indian place - Madras Pavilion; had beers with some friends and SIL at the Saucer and then to Austin Karaoke with some more friends and stayed out entirely too late; spent a day with my parents', saw a movie, met some of their friends, then ate at Papi Tino's; had brunch with friends; drove to Dallas and stayed with an aunt, had dinner with both aunts and a new uncle; drove to Ardmore and saw my Grandma; drove to OKC and some my Oma and Opa; drove back through Dallas and had lunch with an uncle, aunt, and cousins; drove to Houston; spent half of my days working, the rest shopping and topping my days off with dinners with in-laws and friends; flew to NYC to see friends and a baby. It was great fun.

I learned that if you sniffle a lot on a plane that is not full, the people in your row will vacate. It was really only allergies left over from Houston. So I got a row to myself from NYC to Amsterdam.

I learned that JetBlue leaves out of Houston Hobby and not Houston Bush Intercontinental. If you make the mistake, like I did, and go to the wrong airport it's a $70 cab fare to Hobby.

I came home from this trip on a Monday morning and had to go to work. After being home for only a couple of days, I went to Oslo for an archaeology conference. I was not impressed. The presentations were horrible. People typed up exactly what they wanted to say and then read the typed pages. Unprofessional and terrible. I left Oslo a day earlier than planned and so I got to spend about 24 hours with Austin before he left for India where he'll be for a week for work. So jealous.

So this week I'll be trying to keep myself busy. I have lots of little projects since I only work 2 days a week now. Which may also be remedied soon. I have an interview this week and the next.

Our home.

2011-09-14T08:57:00.000+02:00

So, this is where we live and call home. It's a bit long, but you get an idea for the area in the spring-summer time. All of the festivals are pretty much in July. The autumn is rainy and the winter waffles between rain, ice, and snow. There weren't any winter sports shown.

Traveling.

2011-09-01T13:20:00.000+02:00

Traveling is great fun. I always enjoy returning to places I've been before where I have good memories. Now that Texas is no longer my home, I feel a sort of nostalgia when I come back. This trip back was especially nice since it's been about 16 months since I've been back.

I just want to share a tip for fellow persons who are travelling. Know that for several years now, if you board a flight to the USA, regardless of how many times you've been through security, you'll go through another round of security in order to board the plane. So, if you decide that you just must absolutely buy a new can of hairspray for your 10 hour flight from Amsterdam to Houston, please be so kind as to make your last intoxicating, cloud-creating, final spray in the bathroom, or preferably in a sealed area where no one has to inhale that stuff. For the love of all that is good, please do not spray your hair like you have a 1960's beehive or 1980's "Texas" hair in the security line without forewarning the droves of people standing behind and around you. And should someone who you travel with attempt to do such a thing, do not allow them. So, Young Woman, who made such a onslaught as this, know that your straight hair does not need to be sprayed to stay straight. No one cares if you look fashionable in Customs or on your flight. Thank you, Security Man, who kept that can of hairspray from going on the plane. We would have been smelling it for the entire flight.

And then just something funny about driving. I rented an automatic and my was it weird to not have to worry about a clutch or shifting gears. I felt like I was missing something. And then on the drive, I was going so slow at first and it took me a while to get use to the speed and the crazy drivers in Houston. The normal street speed in Stavanger is 30 mph and the highway speed is 55 mph. I'm use to poking along. And I'm use to traffic circles. I had to remind myself about lights and highway crossings and intersections. Watch for people driving across the road! It felt strange. What else is strange? Billboards and especially billboards advertising guns and ammo. Little things I forgot about.

I also can really tell the lack of rain in the area. I don't remember ever seeing so many fields with livestock where the grass was just brown or so many trees with brown and orange leaves.

But it's good to be back. I am looking forward to seeing everyone!

Thanks.

2011-08-30T21:46:00.000+02:00

Thanks to everyone for your kind words, love, and support. Artemis was such a great part of our lives. We took some photos of our last days together and we will share a few, eventually. For now, we take solace in the good times we had with her and try not to dwell on the end. I'd like you all to know that Artemis did not suffer and she was happy till the end, giving out kisses like crazy and being her stinker self.

House

2011-08-29T15:06:00.000+02:00

With a house like this, I'd need a team of dogs to clean up spills and messes from the kitchen.

Artemis

2011-08-27T19:58:00.000+02:00

Artemis underwent surgery Tuesday. It started off as a routine examination to see if she had crystals in her bladder as she has had a urinary tract infection that wouldn't go away. It turned out that she has a tumor in the neck of her bladder. Our choice Tuesday morning was to either consent for surgery or euthanize her. It would be inhumane to do neither and make her live a life where she would need to try to urinate every few feet in great discomfort. We opted for the surgery even though the prognosis was not positive. If they could remove the growth, there would still be the possibility that the scar tissue would end up blocking her bladder completely. The surgery would give them a chance to take a biopsy and have a better idea of the growth. The vet had to make an incision through her abdominal wall so that he could get to her bladder. They tried to remove the tumor but it began to disintegrate. They did not attempt to finish removing it. They did their best to collect a sample which was sent for testing. However, the sample was not a very good one and the surgeon I spoke to did not think it would tell us very much.

We met with our regular vet later in the day. We did see the xray of her bladder. The vet showed us how the lining is suppose to be crisply seen, but that near the neck of her bladder, it becomes fuzzy and there is an obvious growth that shouldn't be there. The lining was also a bit swollen looking, so she's been suffering from irritation for a period. Unfortunately, we couldn't tell the doctor how long blood had been in her urine because we were never really looking and it's hard to tell when she pees in grass or dirt. This would tell them how fast the tumor was growing.

We heard back from the vet Friday. Artemis has a very aggressive form of bladder cancer called invasive transitional cell carcinoma.

Earlier in the week, I did some reading on bladder cancer in dogs and it's not very positive at all. Even dogs who undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment do not live more than one year and they may have all kinds of complications.Totally removing the tumor and its stem are not an option because of the location. The tumor is connected in the wall of the bladder, so there is no way to remove it without also removing part of the bladder lining. Generally, malignant tumors tend to grow at the neck of the bladder, while benign tumors tend to grow further inside. It is very hard to detect bladder cancer in dogs because the symptoms are exactly the same as a urinary tract infection or bladder stones. That is certainly what we thought they'd find Tuesday in the xray. Bladder cancer in dogs is very rare, something like only 1% of cancer cases in dogs are of the bladder or maybe it was 1% of dogs suffer from bladder cancer - it doesn't really matter, does it?

We don't know if the cancer has metastasized yet. The problem with this cancer and its location is that the cancer will invade the pelvic area, hip bones, and spine. When they did the xray on Tuesday, they tried to see if there was sign of cancer in other locations, but they could not see anything. That does not mean it hasn't happened, though. Artemis is continuing to have problems with her urination - it's painful and there is blood in it. She is also having a loss of appetite for her regular food, although she still shows some interest in treats, but it's not like before. These are beyond what should be expected after her surgery and are probably an indication of the advancement of the cancer. She is also panting a lot even at rest. We are giving her pain medicine with an anti-inflammatory.

From the advice of someone who knows us and Artemis well, she said that we should make this weekend all about Artemis and spend the time with her doing what she wants to do, letting her eat all the bad food she wants. So, I think Artemis (also known from time to time as Fartemis, Arty, Stinky Dog, Chewbacca, Stinkface, Dogface, Killer Death Dog, Ferocious Killer, Sweet girl, Fly Slayer, Ninja Dog) will have some reindeer steak and sausages for dinner.

Artemis in August 2004 shortly after we first brought her home from Town Lake Animal Shelter in Austin. She was somewhere between 1 and 2 years old.

Artemis in June 2011 on our hike to Bjørndalsfjellet (The Bear Valley Mountain). She is now 8 or 9 years old.

We are trying our best with the advice and support given to us by friends and family. We are trying to savor our time with Artemis and let ourselves feel the pain, the joy, the fear, and the love. Artemis has been a part of our married life from almost the very beginning. We adopted her within 2 months of getting married. Though there were some rough times and fun times, we've adored her.

Probably the greatest workbench ever built...ever.

2011-08-21T16:43:00.004+02:00

With summer coming to an end and winter approaching, we thought we should prepare for more indoor activities. To that end, we're cultivating a healthy addiction to Set.

In addition to that, and since we now have a nice bit of cellar to work in, we decided to build a little workbench. Since I'm not exactly a master carpenter, I did a little poking around on the internet for plans, pointers, and ideas, and I ultimately found an approachable but interesting design that I went with.

The main part of this workbench that I had no experience with was a "lap joint". This is probably the first thing they teach in Remedial Woodworking for Idiots (tm), but it was new to me. Making these joints gave me a good excuse to buy some chisels and made the whole experience more interesting.

So, one trip to Monter and a few hours later, we've got a new workbench :)

I started the joint faces by cutting out strips with my circular saw.

I knocked out the slivers with a hammer.

I cleaned up the joint face with the chisel.

Chisel bites.

Top view of one of the joints.

One side done.

The finished product.

Visiting the States

2011-08-20T08:09:00.002+02:00

We haven't lived overseas really all that long. 2-3 years is not much. So far, our visits home have been hurry scurry and we don't have enough time to relax with all of our friends and family. We're usually only able to hit Houston and Austin. So we discussed the other night a plan. Every 3 years we will make a visit back to the States for about 3 weeks. We'll fly into Houston, rent a car, and then take our time visiting folks. We're hoping that our plan will allow us to make it to California, Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma, more of Texas, and the northeast. Of course, we won't make it to all those places each 3-year visit, but at least we'll have the option.

With that said, don't wait for 3 years to see us! We are in one of the most beautiful places in the world and look forward to visits! And we're always up for visits that meet in the rest of Europe.

So this means that this year we have a visit together in November, but it'll be short and only hitting Austin and Houston. So our next trip will be 2014.

Meaning of names

2011-08-20T08:03:00.003+02:00

When we moved to our new place, we translated the major street name by our house. Breidablikkveien can be translated to mean "broad view way." So we thought nothing of it until we were suggesting a name for Austin's aunt's new dog. From Norse mythology, the god Balder has a great hall in Asgard, which is named Breidablik. So the street may also be the road to Balder's hall. Either way, there is really a nice view from the top of the hill where the street changes to another name.

Darmstadt - 2011

2011-08-06T17:25:00.006+02:00

First, I remind you that Austin and I went to Darmstadt in 2004 just days before we were married. On that trip, we met Geli and her son. They took us to Frankenstein's castle, saw Geli's childhood home, the home my father and family lived in, and then we had a nice dinner on the Rheine.

As circumstances have made it, Irmgard has become older and has now moved to a nursing home. Austin and I went because her health has declined in the last years. Irmgard is 81 afterall.

We met a cousin of my Oma's who lives south of Darmstadt. She and her husband, I'll call Grid and Land, were very nice and hosted us for 3 days. They picked us up from Frankfurt airport on Wednesday. They took us directly to Irm. She was delighted to see us! As soon as I came into view, she cried out "Lisa Jean!" (And no one else besides my Oma or my aunts can call me that.) Then Austin came into view and she said "And your husband!" So we snapped this photo.

You'll have to excuse the quality of all photos that I show here. We couldn't find the camera before we left Stavanger and had to make due with Austin's phone, which did pretty well.

After staying for a while, Grid and Land gave us a driving tour of the area to see the country side which surrounds Darmstadt. It's very pretty. Lots of trees of different types, farm land, hills, mountains, valleys, and of course various farm animals in pastures. We were fed a very delicious meal which we had to basically beg to help prepare and finished off the meal with some delicious wine from a vineyard in the area. Grid and Land live in the German wine country. Later in the evening, we met their daughter, who I'll call Gard. She was lots of fun and we instantly got along. I'll admit that I was a little nervous about meeting and staying with family I never knew, but it was a great time and they are very interesting people who have led interesting lives.

On Thursday, we had lunch in the center of Bensheim where we walked around and learned of the history there.

The romance around the fountain. The story is that a young woman met her husband at this fountain. The fountain was destroyed in the war and the woman had a replica built.

The oldest building in town. This building was erected in 1500.

I also learned that the lattice painting of the wood is actually fairly new. Homes used to be covered in a stucco so that the beams could not be seen. Then people started leaving them uncovered.

We visited Irmgard again and looked through old photographs. It's such fun to see pictures of people when they were so young. I saw a photo of my dad all being cool and stylish in the 70's - big ol' aviator glasses, long hair, a mustache, a razor blade on a chain, and black t-shirt. I can only imagine he was wearing bell-bottomed blue jeans as well. I learned my great grandmother was a very good singer and could sing soprano. The brother of my Oma and Irmgard looked liked James Dean when he was young, probably it was in the 50's. We brought some cherry cake to eat which probably spoiled her dinner. After visiting for a time, we left Irm to have her dinner and rest for the night.

Grid took us to the Mathildenhöhe which is also called the Five Fingers. This is just the model since the building is under scaffolding. There is a clock on the side of the building that is upside down - the numbers are flipped.

On the same grounds, there is an old Russian church which was moved to Darmstadt for a Russian lord who married a German lord's daughter. It is really quite beautiful. To the right is an orchard where some people were playing bocce. There are many statues along the perimeter.

We also learned a bit about the architecture of the area. This door frame is a very particular style which marks the end of a kind of architecture. I think it is super cool. The Architect probably knows all about it.

Then we had another slow dinner evening and we were able to see Gard again.

On Friday, we had a slow morning then visited Irmgard again. We arrived right when they were having lunch. She ate her main course of fish and potatoes. It was Friday, so no meat could be served. When Irmgard decided she didn't want the soup or the dessert, the other woman at the table who sits there, kept telling Irmgard she had to eat. She needed to finish her meal. Irmgard waved the suggestion away. She ate the part she really wanted. Then we went back with her to her room to check out some German television and listen to her bird named after Hansi Hinterseer "sing."

We spent the rest of the afternoon with Grid and Land and took the train to Frankfurt, where Lisa shopped some and then we headed on to the airport.

You can see all the photos here.

Stavanger harbor

2011-07-24T16:08:00.002+02:00

This last week we had the annual Gladmat festival. We have some pics and videos to post soon. Promise. Wednesday is the start of another festival - the Tall Ships Race. Go here and see webcam footage of the harbor. You have to manually update it though. Starting Wednesday, some very big boats will be anchoring in the harbor. It should be lots of fun.

Thriller

2011-07-21T10:23:00.002+02:00

On my way in to work this morning, the radio station played "Thriller" in its entirety. I got to listen to Vincent Price creepily talk about the hounds from hell and the ghosts of 40,000 years. As a child, I was scared to death of this song, especially when Vincent Price spoke. While I'm not scared to death now, it's still really creepy and puts a slight chill to the bone.

Swanktilious

2011-07-20T13:18:00.002+02:00

A new word I just made up. Like it? Well, if you do, then you'll like this drink that I swiped from another blog. It's from the Caymans and is called Swanky Panky. It was really delicious, but super sweet. I suggest using rather less sugar than what is called for. We couldn't even taste the rum or much of the lime for that matter.

6 cups of water
1 cup lime juice
2 tsp honey
1 cup brown sugar (really, start with less and then work your way up)

Combine ingredients by either stirring or shaking. Add a shot of rum to the glass if you feel so inclined.

Gatling Kitty is in the house...literally!

2011-07-12T16:53:00.002+02:00

The day we've all been waiting for is here! With no further ado, I give you...Gatling Kitty!

Lisa hangs the framed Gatling Kitty with great care.

Austin is a big fan of Gatling Kitty.

SXSW and the Norse invasion

2011-07-12T15:23:00.001+02:00

18 Norwegian bands at SXSW this year! Here.

Check out Harry's Gym. They're from Stavanger and they are good.

Lefse

2011-07-12T10:33:00.005+02:00

It's July. That means everyone is on holiday. As the month progresses, more people leave. Frankly, July is one of the greatest times of the year to stay in town - at least for me. It's generally warm (compared to winter) and sunny (if you don't mind some clouds and occasional rain showers). There are lots of events going on. I guess it's nice that the town is pretty quiet. No traffic. There are downsides, as I've mentioned before.

I think in my entire building there are maybe 10 people. My building is pretty large. It includes the entire science and technology school as well as a cafeteria, coffee shop, and library. The cafeteria and coffee shop are closed until mid-August. So, this morning, having not eaten breakfast, I decided I'd like a little something to get me to lunch. I walked down the 2 flights of stairs to the vending machine! I was looking at my choices: candy, cream cheese crackers, and lefse.

I didn't want the candy because I was not wanting anything really sweet. The cream cheese crackers seemed more appropriate for an afternoon snack. So, I investigated the lefse. The packaging looks pretty straight forward - rectangles of a flatbread. I buy one package. This is the kind of lefse I have in mind.

It's straight forward potato bread.

As the vend is occuring, I realize that there are not 2 pieces of flatbread, but 4. Okay, snack for tomorrow. Then I pick it up and realize there is some kind of cream filling in between the bread slices. Okay, a little treat I was not expecting. I get back to my office and open the package. The cream filling was very much like Twinkie filling or Oreo cookie filling. Surprisingly sweet. Yes, I enjoyed half of it. The other is waiting for me another day.

This is basically what the product looked like, except the label says "lefse snack" in big letters. On closer inspection, it also says "smurt tykklefse" which alerts you of the sweetness. But the vending bar is right over those letters.

And I here I was thinking I was getting a not-so-sweet snack. So just beware if you buy lefse, especially from a vending machine, and you think you're going the more healthy or less sweet route. You probably aren't.

The Fuu-Turrrrre

2011-07-06T08:48:00.002+02:00

You should read the title with a space future echo kind of voice.

Short recap. We moved to Norway so that Lisa could keep working with the same research group as she was in Texas and attend a distance-learning MSc program in the Netherlands. Every 3-4 months for 2 years, Lisa traveled to either Enschede, Utrecht (her favorite), Wageningen, or Delft for about 1 week. Working 75% time and spending about 30-50% time on school, depending on the class, then adding the thesis in the last 7 months of her study, and trying to balance some time with Austin and other people, she finished with good marks at the end of June. Now we're awaiting her diploma to arrive in the mail. In the meantime, Austin has been working, keeping the house, worrying about finances and all that adult stuff, riding his bike, playing ultimate frisbee, and joining a hobby group (aka hackers club aka nerd barn).

Everyone keeps asking what will we do now. Well, we plan to keep busy. July is a great month in Stavanger with free music shows, Gladmat, the Tall Ships Races will be here this year, and all the expat goings on, plus some other groups we are involved with (knitting, book swap, nerd barn). We're making a few travel plans, but we can't really decide where we want to go - travel Europe, go to SE Asia, northern Africa, Turkey. I think we settled on Turkey. The Norwegians are always raving about their trips there.

Language. We must take more language classes.

As for work, Austin will keep his same job. Lisa's job is much more up in the air. The research project officially ends August 31. There are some kettles on the fire though, so we'll see what happens. For the next year, there will be some juggling for Lisa but then she is planning to apply for a PhD position that would start in August 2012, if all the funding for that project goes in place and she is the chosen candidate. PhD positions are actually staff positions in Norway so they are competitive and candidates are chosen like any job.

So pretty much the same thing we've been doing except Lisa won't have school! (which still sykes her out that she doesn't need to read, meet classmates, write, or do any other school stuff.)

Bitter-sweet

2011-06-30T22:21:00.002+02:00

It's a bitter sweet evening for me. I worked so hard these past two years and I wanted so badly to be finished. It was with success that I finished. While I have my own opinions about the program itself, I enjoyed all of my classmates and professors. I met people from all over the world - Netherlands (of course), Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Canada, Romania, Greece. Each person was unique and a good memory is held of them all. I hope that I see them each again in the future. My professors and especially my thesis committee each had their strengths. I hope that in the future I may perhaps interact with some of them some more. This evening we had our last student dinner together. At the end, there was much hugging and congratulations and wishes for success, invitations to visit and places to stay. People told me how proud they were of me that I finished early and how amazed they were that I handled a heavy load these past 6 months. One guy even said he'd do well in the last year to make me proud. I almost burst with endearment. While I am happy I finished my MSc course, I will miss these quarterly visits to the Netherlands. I will miss these people. I do hope that we will all keep in touch.

Done.

2011-06-29T23:16:00.002+02:00

Well, almost. Tomorrow I have a 20 minute presentation to make and then I am finished with my thesis program. I successfully defended my thesis today and received a very satisfactory mark. My committee was pleased with my work, my motivation, and my attention to comments and critiques. My discussion after the thesis was weak and I agree, but I did a good job overall. I am happy it is finished. Now I can be a real person again and give Austin and Artemis attention. I am a little sad that I won't be making quarterly trips to the Netherlands. I like my co-students and hope them success!

Jeans

2011-06-20T08:11:00.003+02:00

My quest for the perfect jeans are over. And they are for you, too, Ladies, if you go to a Levis store and get the Curve ID. The nice thing about the staff at the Levis store is that they actually knew that I could go a size smaller and that the jeans would be perfect. Perfect.

No longer do you have to worry that your favorite BR or Gap or Old Navy jeans won't be available this fall or that they will have changed the cut.

So curves are the best! Because really, how many of you actually have a straight waist to hips?

Marmite

2011-06-20T07:54:00.003+02:00

When we first became vegetarian (and really we were all veg then), I had read that marmite was a good source of B vitamins. It is even suggested to vegetarians to make marmite part of the daily diet. So, I went out and bought some marmite (which is actually kind of hard to do in Austin). I would put it in smoothies as this was an easy way to ingest it. Looking back, I cannot recall actually putting it on toast. I did store it in the fridge and the marmite would get this kind of hard texture and it would take forever to get just a tiny bit out. Eventually, the marmite when in the way of other experimental kitchen ingredients...to the back of the fridge. Then we moved...blah blah blah...and I did not have it again.

A short time ago, Austin and I spent a weekend in the Oslo area with friends. (Pictures coming as soon as I finish Vienna.) The husband, we'll call him Fred, eats marmite on toast with butter every morning. So I learned that marmite does not go in the fridge and it is properly eaten on toast slathered with butter.

I had seen marmite in the grocery store down the street from us and so went the journey to relocate it. 2 trips to the store and no marmite in sight. I decided I had imagined it, because I kept wanting to go back and look by the concentrated broth jars. I kept thinking that I was mistaken and it couldn't be the right spot. Well, it was. The marmite at Helgø Matsenter is wedged between two kinds of concentrated broths. Feeling triumphant, I grabbed a jar and a loaf of bread.

I waited all weekend before trying it. Weekends are for exciting and fun breakfasts anyway. Saturday: croissants filled with egg, cheese, and black beans. Sunday: waffles topped with cinnamon and buttered nectarine-peach fruit things. Anyhow, this morning, this glorious, chilly, cloudy, drizzly morning, I sliced off 2 pieces of bread and tossed them under the broiler to get nice and toasty. I was really looking forward to this breakfast. In my mind, it's something I could easily keep at work. Spread on some butter and put marmite on one. I almost put it on both, but changed my mind. I bit into the marmited toast and was immediately repulsed. It tasted so sour! I did not finish the slice, but have decided I will try again tomorrow with a slathering of butter.

Update
I slathered the toast in butter today. It cut the sourness. Bites with marmite alone or with very little butter were still a little cringe-worthy.

Summer salad for you

2011-06-16T16:15:00.002+02:00

I threw this salad together based on a Moosewood recipe for potatoes with lemon and capers. My version is a bit different. I think it's great for the summer.

Ingredients

Lettuce

Potatoes

Capers

Lemon

Tomatoes

Avocado

Salt

1. Chop, boil, then chill your potatoes.

2. Rinse your lettuce, capers, tomatoes.

3. Depending on your lettuce, chop, shred, etc.

4. Depending on your tomatoes, chop. I used cherry tomatoes, so I kept them whole.

5. Cut up your avocado. I cut mine in quarters because I love avocado.

6. Squeeze lemon into a large enough bowl to hold your ingredients, sans lettuce and avocado.

7. Add potatoes, capers, tomatoes.

8. Toss.

9. Add lettuce to your eating bowl.

10. Top with potato mix and avocado.

11. Lightly salt.

The great thing about this recipe, besides its simplicity and deliciousness, is that if you like tomato more than avocado, you just lessen the avocado and up the tomato. I'm not a big lettuce fan, so I didn't have all that much lettuce, but I used an entire avocado for one serving.

Vienna!

2011-06-14T19:48:00.030+02:00

At the end of May, I went to Vienna for a conference (EAGE). After a mistake in reading the schedule, my colleagues and I all arrived a day early. While this is normally okay in a new city, we had work to do! But we took advantage of the forced day off. Then we spent long days and nights with the conference and related events. Do not be fooled. There was not much touring around...Until Austin and Twist arrived to meet up with Young and me. We spent 2.5 days visiting the city. So here is a very quick recap.

Sunday: Arrived in Vienna with some yahoos (actually they are awesome people). From left to right: Young, The Geologist, me, Andy.

Monday: Checked in at the conference; had lunch.

Saw Mozart.

Take the day to actually learn some things at the Natural History Museum.

Monday night was spent at the conference ice breaker and a late dinner.

Tuesday: Conference all day and then a very cool event hosted by Roxar at a vineyard overlooking Vienna.

Wednesday: Conference all day and then in the evening we went to a dinner and party for all the conference attendees at the Hofburg Palace.

Dancing. Eating. Drinking. And there was this singer-pianist who looks like one of the Doobie Brothers - Michael McDonald - if he gained a lot of weight.

Thursday: More conference and then Twist and Austin arrive. So we go out for dinner. It was asparagus season, so it was a side for all the dishes.

Walk around. Down towards the center of town. Here's either the University of Vienna or a two spire church.

Friday: It was a really nice day this day. Twist and Young told us about Princess Sisi who is very famous in China and wanted to visit Schönbrunn, a royal residence. So we took the train out and spent the entire day there. It was a very good deal.

Touring in the palace, but no photos inside!

Walking the gardens...

Watching our first thunderstorm in years!

Solving the labyrinth...

And the maze...

Then playing!!!

Still playing!!!

The playground was so much fun!!!

Then we were very tired and headed back to our hotel.

Twist and Young made dinner.

Then later we went for a beer and dessert.

Saturday...it was rainy, so we went to the art museum and checked out some Egyptian items...

Then some other stuff...

And more things...

Eventually, we felt that we had seen enough.

Then we walked around quite a bit.

We had dinner at the worst place. The waiter got our order 95% wrong, but was never around long enough for us to even complain. My vegetarian zucchini dish had a layer of ham in it. I was suppose to get a potato salad and got a sauerkraut salad. Twist's schnitzel was suppose to have some kind of mushroom sauce. Austin's dish was also missing something. And the waiter got our drink order incorrect. The only person who had the correct order was Young! She had a plate of fried mushrooms. So much for a good Viennese meal to end the trip.

But we placated ourselves with ice cream and a nice evening stroll.

Sunday...Austin and Twist flew back to Stavanger. Young took the morning to stroll around the town and visit the University of Vienna...

And I stayed in the hotel to finish my thesis.

We had a great time! We hope to spend more travels with Twist and Young as they were easy going and a lot of fun.

See all the photos here.

Funny conversation

2011-06-08T11:59:00.002+02:00

Conversations with coworkers in Norway are very different from in Texas. Partly because there is not the fear of sexual harassment everywhere. So, I relate a conversation I had today with a colleague, who I'll call Tom.

Tom: Lisa, I don't see you eating lunch anymore.
Lisa: Oh, I eat lunch. I just leave before lunch time.
Tom: You leave before lunch time? (with an incredulous look on his face)
L: Well, because I was working part time, but now I'm full time, so you'll see me eating lunch again...Don't worry! I'm not starving myself!
T: Okay. Because it's getting to the swimsuit addition.
(I tilt my head and try to interpret this...)
L: Oh, well. I don't consider this swimsuit weather. You know, I grew up in much hotter temperatures. I consider this still sweater weather.
(Laughing all around.)
T: So you have to go to Turkey then?
L: Yes! You know, I see these cute swimsuits in the shops and I would like to buy one, but then it would just sit in my closet.
T: (laughing) You could wear it around the house.
L: (laughing) Right. That's really uncomfortable.
T: (pretends to mop) You could do housework. I'm sure you boyfriend would enjoy that.
L: (still laughing) I'm sure he would! I'll let him know you suggested it.
Tom keeps laughing as he walks away.

Thesis!

2011-06-06T15:21:00.002+02:00

It is official! I have been given the "okay" by my advisor and thesis professor to turn in my thesis. After a bit of craziness this morning, a friend of mine in Amsterdam let me use his bank account to pay for the printing. (I could not pay online unless it was using an online bank payment using a Dutch account!) So the guy was nice enough to actually go in change his bank passwords so that he could send them to me and then I could pay. Of course, he promptly changed them back. However, I am forever in debt to Mr. Amsterdam.

I even received an email from the printer in the afternoon that the thesis copies were printed and bound and delivered to the thesis coordinator. YAY!

Now on June 29 I will give my thesis presentation and answer questions. All in all, about a 1.5 hour procedure. All for an MSc. Don't be confused that this is a PhD with all this hassle and presentations.

I would love to drink some champagne tonight, but I cannot. Tomorrow I have a thrilling procedure awaiting me and get to prepare tonight. I suggest you watch Ghost Town.

Bjørndalsfjellet, or nearly so

2011-06-05T09:27:00.005+02:00

Saturday (yesterday) may have started off a bit gray, but it turned into one of those days that are so perfect that it's a crime to stay inside. The sky was spotlessly blue, temperatures were in the 20s, and the wind was pleasant, so we decided to poke around on (the awesome) ut.no for a good hike.

We settled on a hike in an area that we had been to, over near Gramstad and the every-popular Dalsnuten. The big attraction of the trail we took is a peak called Bjørndalsfjellet which, as I understand it, means something like "The Mountain of Bear Valley." Awesome!

As it turns out, we didn't actually make it to that peak. It requires taking a side-track that would have added time and distance to the hike, and we were a bit concerned about pushing Artemis too hard. She's getting older, and, while she enjoys the heck out of these trips, they are getting to be tough on her hips.

In any event, the hike was wonderful. The weather stayed great the entire time, and some of the views were truly incredible. There were some tense moments when we got off the trail and into some rough terrain. We managed to find the trail again, however, and nobody twisted or broke anything.

I could go on and on about it, but instead I'll let the pictures speak for me. First, here the map:

View Bjørndalfjellet (or nearly) in a larger map

And here are some highlight pics:

Austin & Artemis getting ready.

An awesome view of lakes.

Artemis laid claim to the entire area.

Everyone having a good time!

The end of the trail.

You can see all of the pics here.

Summer hours

2011-06-03T11:07:00.002+02:00

Working in Norway has its great advantages, disadvantages, and what I may also just call annoyances. But the annoyances really depend on your perspective.

At the uni, we are now officially working summer hours. This means that regular hours are from 8am to 3pm. Folks are allowed to leave 45 minutes early between mid-May and mid-September. I believe this is for a few reasons. Summer can be gorgeous, so it keeps up morale and cuts down on skipping out early. There are no summer classes and exams are finished in late May. Classes start at the end of August, so people are not really back into full swing until September. July is vacation time across board, especially for those with kids.

Other businesses also have summer hours. Closing early, closing a few days a week, or just closing up shop entirely. So that is where the annoyance arrives. The coffee shop in my building will close in the next week or two for the summer. One of the buses on my route to-from work will stop running from mid-June to mid-August. I just hope that there are not any government or official things that I need taken care of during the summer, because it will take twice as long to complete.

But, hey, it's summer now! That means that because I arrive at 7:30am, I get to leave at 2:30pm! And it's a good thing too, because today is fabulous!!

Lisa's Parents Visit

2011-06-02T14:36:00.024+02:00

Finally, the pictures have been cut down to a less massive amount; captions have even been added for all the photos! You can see them all here.

Now for some highlights.

Saturday...Parents arrive in the AM and we do our best to keep them awake and alert. After a short rest, shower, and breakfast, we head to the Sentrum, where we ran some errands; saw Domkirken of Stavanger...

Visited the fire watch tower which is now a museum...

Then headed home for relaxation but no napping!

Sunday...Artemis was taken to our favorite pet sitter and we went to the airport for our flight to Bergen.

We visited the Fantoft Stavkirke.

Then had dinner at the Bryggeloftet og Stuene. Among the items we ordered, smoked whale.

We walked over to Korskirken...

Then to Domkirken of Bergen...

Monday...We took the Sognefjord tour.

Visited Flåm...

Took the historic Flam train to Myrdal...

Then took the train from Myrdal to Bergen...

We ate dinner at Spisekroken.

Tuesday...This was Constitution Day in Norway...May 17...So we watched parades...

Ate some fair food...

Visited a restaurant for shrimp and beer...

And headed back to Stavanger.

Wednesday...It was really rainy and Lisa had been running her parents ragged, because that's how she visits new cities, so there was relaxation...

A visit to the local grocery...

And dinner at Nye la Piazza...

Followed by Aegir beer at The Cardinal.

Thursday...the last full day of the trip and it was sunny! So some driving around to see the local area. A quick look at the Viking Age farm in Stavanger...

A visit to the 3 Swords in Hafrsfjord...

Solastranden...

And an old WWII bunker?

Then Vigdelstranden...

Home for a rest...

Dinner on the patio...

But it was too cold...

We introduced the card game Guillotine for a nice rounding out of the trip.

We had a great time!!

My parents in Norway

2011-05-20T12:23:00.003+02:00

We had a blast. There will be more posts. For now...

On Sunday, we arrived in Bergen and went to the Fantoft Stavekirke.

On Thursday, their last day, we drove along the North Sea road. This was taken at Vigdelstranden.

And if you just cannot wait until we make some posts, clean the photos, and add some captions, you can see everything here and here.

A delayed post

2011-05-20T12:22:00.001+02:00

This actually was written a week ago, but blogspot was having problems and I just got back to it.

I was gridding some points today at work and so while the calculation was running, I had a lot of time on my hands. So I decided to clean out my personal email inbox. Lots of emails there. Actually, there were so many and a lot were so old, I decided that emails that I have not replied to in over 14 months, well, they're just getting filed away. So if you have sent me an email and I have not responded, it's not that I don't love you. It's that I haven't really had a lot of time. I read it and even put a star on it so that I would come back to it. Sadly, I even have emails from 2007 still in my inbox. Gah. That's just terrible. In one of the emails I did finally respond to, I stated that I am a terrible person. Really there are no excuses. I haven't been *that* busy. Right now, I am apologising to anyone who is still waiting on an email from me for something even as mundane as "how's it going?" I am really truly sorry. I will try to be so much better from this point forward in the future.

Bike rides

2011-05-09T17:10:00.002+02:00

I've been riding my bike to work lately. As much as I love having the bakery on my bus route home and I was really enjoying the walk/run in the morning, the bike ride is so much better.

Bus route in the AM: This is about 45 minutes to work.

Bus route in the PM: Between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on if I make the connection or get to visit the bakery.

Plus side...I can have lunch at the bakery, pick up pastries...

Down side...the time sink.

Running in the AM: This is about 20 minutes. I am not a good runner and I get easily distracted and demotivated.

Pluse side...I'm exercising. I can take the bus home and stop at the bakery.

Biking in the AM: It's really pleasant. It takes me 10-15 minutes to ride into work.

Biking in the PM: It's still really pleasant. It takes about the same amount of time to ride home.

Plus side...I'm excercising. It's really fast. I can challenge myself a bit if I feel like it and it's easy to add 5-10 minutes extra of riding if I want.

Down side...I'm a bit stinky when I arrive and feel no motivation to shower for 4 hours. Also, not so keen on riding in rain, cold, ice, etc.

So, for these nice spring and hopefully summer days, I'll be riding my bike. But on days of craptastickness or winteriness, I'll be back to the bus.

I will take some photos soon of the ride. There's a considerable amount of downhill (aka coasting) and flats (aka easy). Austin found a hard hat this weekend on one of our walks. I suggested to him to make it into a headcam. So maybe by the end of the summer I'll have a video of the ride.

In other news, we're alive and well. My parents are coming on Saturday. We're looking forward to it!

Thesis Pt. 2

2011-05-09T17:08:00.002+02:00

Today I submitted my thesis for its final review from my committee. On May 23, they will give me their final comments and we'll see if I make the June 1 deadline. If I submit June 1, then on June 29 I give a defense.

Thesis

2011-05-06T15:41:00.002+02:00

I keep telling myself, Austin, and Artemis, "I'm almost done."

Every time I think I'm just about finished, there's something else I realize I should do.

I sound like my mom when she and my aunt were packing up the house in Murphy to move to Austin. My aunt said, "Your mom's been saying that we're almost done all day!"

So, I'm almost done. So very close.

I told my advisor I'd send him the final thesis with all of the corrections I've received on Monday. At that time, he's going to send me a few more comments on the last section he received. The goal is to submit my final version on Wednesday to my committee.

Just in time for my parents' visit.

A little Norwegian history

2011-04-23T08:32:00.002+02:00

This is an interesting article about a Norwegian man who became a refugee in Sweden during WWII and later immigrated to the USA. I never really knew much about how Norway was affected during the second world war, but I am slowly learning more. In short, Norwegians were hit very hard. 10,000+ died; 64,000+ were refugees in Sweden. The total population of Norway was somewhere between 2.3 million (1910 number) and 3.5 million (1960 number); somewhere between 2 and 3 percent of the population. At least, according to the article.

Touring Norway?

2011-04-20T17:13:00.002+02:00

Well, my parents have picked the year to visit. Apparently, more people (over 2 million total) are wanting to visit Norway by cruise than before. You can read about it here. We are actually going to take the Sognefjord tour. I went on the Norway in a Nutshell tour when I was here in 2008. The difference is that this trip, we are going to see the entire fjord. I only saw a small part. We'll go to Flåm, aka Tourist Trap, and get to ride the Flåm train.

The cruise ships should be coming into Stavanger again soon. I have seen some people who look suspiciously touristy with their large cameras and backpacks wandering aimlessly around the downtown area. I imagine that a ship or two have come to port. Or maybe these are just some tourists who came by other modes. I hope that a ship is here when my parents visit. It's truly amazing to see the ships in the little harbor.

Gumbo.

2011-04-17T07:37:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, we had some friends over to enjoy a big pot of gumbo with us. It was a hit all around. The recipe said it was enough for 8, but we think it would be enough for 16, maybe even 20. (We're gonna be eating gumbo for the rest of the week.) We also had some rosemary broccoli and Austin busted out some homemade bread, one loaf with cumin goat cheese! We failed to take photos, so you'll have to take my word that it was delicious.

We were able to buy fresh okra from one of the Middle Eastern markets in the sentrum. They even had Crystal hot sauce. We're pretty sure the Asian market also has some bonafide Louisiana-made hot sauce, but we didn't go over there. We picked up freshly caught and cleaned cod (torsk in Norsk) and trout (ørret). At the funky store down the street (which we need to post pictures of) we bought some fresh crab meat that had been cleaned up from the shell and then sold in the top shell of the crab. It was pretty interesting. I'm sure we were suppose to make stuffed crabs with them, but we had other plans.

When Austin was in Texas, he asked my brother and sister-in-law for a good NOLA cookbook and he picked up a copy of The New Orleans Cookbook. Another time we will talk about other recipes. Today is just about the gumbo. But so far we enjoy the book and it even has a little history about some of the recipes.

Here's the adapted recipe we used since we don't eat meat and couldn't serve sausage to all of the guests.

Shrimp and Crab Gumbo adapted from Rima and Richard Collin's The New Orleans Cookbook

2 white onions, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1/3 cup finely sliced green onion

2 Tbs finely minced fresh parsley

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 medium tomatoes

~1 lb trout, cleaned, skinned, deboned, chopped into smallish cubes for eating

~2 lb cod, prepared same as trout

3 crab heads/bodies filled with meat, discard shell

~2 lbs fresh okra, tips and tops sliced, chopped into small edible slices

Roux:

3/4 c vegetable oil

3/4 c flour

Liquid and seasonings:

2.5 qt of homemade vegetable stock (Whatever you do, do not use a seafood based stock. It will be overwhelming as per my brother.)

3 whole bay leaves, crushed

1.5 tsp dried thyme

5 tsp salt

1.25 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne

4 tsp fresh lemon juice

10 whole allspice

1/2 tsp mace

8 whole cloves

Be sure to chop all of your veggies and fish prior to starting. At the very least, have the okra cleaned and chopped before the roux is started if you have a helper. If you do it on your own, do all the prep work first. It will take you some time.

First you make the roux.

Heat the oil in a 10 qt pot over medium heat. (The recipe said 7-8 qt but we needed just a little bit bigger.)

Gradually add the flour, stirring constantly.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until a brown (like pecan shells) roux is formed.

20-30 minutes.

Alternatively, buy a roux in a jar and use it. Austin's becoming the master chef, so he has this down.

Then you add the veg.

Immediately, add onion, pepper, green onions, parsley, garlic.

Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

The vegs should be light brown.

Add the tomatoes and mix thoroughly.

Then you start the soupiness.

Add 2 qts of cold veg stock.

Add the cleaned and chopped trout, 1 of the crab heads sans shell, okra, and seasonings.

Mix well.

Be sure to scrape the bottom.

Raise the heat slightly and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

Then lower the heat and simmer for 1 hour.

On a frequent basis (occasional is probably too little) scrape down the sides and bottom.

At the end of the hour, add the remaining stock and stir.

Here you have a choice. If your gumbo is not to be served immediately, you should remove the gumbo from heat and let it stand to room temperature. About 30 minutes before serving, you will come back to the recipe.

Bring the gumbo back to a boil.

Then turn the heat down to a simmer.

Add the remaining fish and crab.

Cook for about 8 more minutes.

Let the gumbo sit for about 15 minutes before serving.

Serve over rice in deep bowls.

Vaulen beach

2011-04-09T19:29:00.004+02:00

Our new apartment is within walking distance of the Vaulen beach area, and we took a nice long walk down there today.

View Larger Map

We're just starting to get some beeeeuuuuutiful days (still a touch on the chilly side, but improving!), so we took advantage of it this morning. Long story short, here are the pics!

You can see 'em all here.

Wageningen, a little history

2011-04-01T10:12:00.005+02:00

So I learned some interesting things about this town while I was here.

Did you know that the Nazi's surrendered here to the Canadians?

They actually surrendered at this place - Hotel de Wereld (Hotel of the World). If I understood correctly, the Nazis used this hotel as a base.

Here are some commemorations of the event:

This is the liberty monument.

These are on the base of the monument commemorating the end of WWII for the Netherlands.

This is the plaque commemorating the surrender. It's on the side of the Hotel de Wereld where the signing of the surrender actually took place.

This is also on the side of the building. It is for the Prince Bernard. He was German born, but married the Queen of the Netherlands (Not sure why he wasn't king?) but he served the Allies during WWII.

This is the church in the center of the town. Most of the old Dutch town, I believe, are constructed in this manner. Church in the center, rings of roads and diagonals outwards. The Nazis used this church as their lookout point because they could see so far. They destroyed it at the last minute when they were about to surrender. I imagine they were going to retreat or something but then couldn't.

I couldn't get the church in one shot. The first two should just fit on top of each other with some overlap. (Yes I could mosaic them, but don't want to). The third photo is on the right side of the building. The white blocks are the original blocks from the very old times. My friend was telling us some things about the church, but I can't find the information, so it may have been in Dutch.

Here's a video so you can see the whole thing.

The B&B

2011-04-01T09:35:00.006+02:00

I said I would blog a little more about the place I'm staying and since I'm leaving now, I feel more comfortable broadcasting the address.

The place is called JY's Tulpje. Wageningen is an agricultural center. There are many little farms with sheep and horses. I'm sure that there will be other crops in the fields later in the year. The B&B is located in walking distance to the bus routes 86 and 88 which both go to Wageningen center and to the Ede train station. The place is about a 10 minute bike ride to the university and about a 10-15 minute ride to the center (depending on the route). Of course, this all also walkable, but the bike is faster than either the bus or walking (and it's cheaper). The B&B has a bike for use and although it could use a little attention, it is still quite good.

I am not positive on the original use of the little room, but it seems like it was once a detached garage which has been finished. It is connected to the main house by a door to their kitchen through the room's "kitchen." This is nice because the owners leave nice little food items in the kitchen and if you keep the door closed between the room and kitchen, you won't be disturbed. I already showed some photos of the kitchen.

This is the bedroom. There is everything you need. I really appreciate the ample lighting. There are overhead lights and a ceiling fan; lights over the desk/bench; bedside lamps; and also bedside sconces. You can lay in bed and read and easily switch off the light. The theme is tulips, so there is a bit of tulip art decorating the room. They keep fresh tulips in the room, which I find so nice and gives it a home-like feel.

The room has its own patio with chairs and tables so you can sit outside on a nice afternoon. But beware of the curious chicken, Brunei. She may peck your toes as she did mine!

This is a view looking out from the back of the patio towards the street.

This photo is from the front door of the room. It's nice that there is a personal entrance.

The owners, Joop and Yvonne, are really very nice. I would stay here again. So if you are in Wageningen, contact them to see if they are available.

And to leave you with a few pictures of the chickens.

If you feel so bold, you may ask for the currant bun with almond filling. It is wonderful.

Chickens!

2011-03-26T09:42:00.003+01:00

I've seen chickens, sure. I have never been so close to chickens though! The b&b has 4 chickens which just hang out in the yard. The most curious one is Brunei.

Brunei by the statue. I love that statue!

Walking towards the other part of the garden where the other chickens were hanging out.

The chicken coupe is just behind the shed.

"Hey, wh'cha doin?"

Breakfast

2011-03-26T09:23:00.003+01:00

I am in this great bed and breakfast. I will gladly publish all their contact details when I am closer to departing.

Something you should know about Dutch culture if you don't already. The Dutch, in general, eat a lot of bread. A lot. At lunches, those of us from other countries, are always amazed that the Dutch students eat a sandwich, a roll, and a breaded fried thing or a kind of savory pastry. Plus they will eat some fruit or salad, a juice or milk, and something else depending on how hungry they are. Now, I say student, but banish from your mind the 19 year old who is starving and replace it with mid-late 20's and early 30's.

It's not wonder then that my hosts are giving me tons of bread! Yesterday morning I had 6 slices of bread, 2 buns, and 2 rolls. This was in addition to a great spread of fruit, yogurt, cheese slices, eggs, and other stuff in the fridge. I settled for one roll, 2 slices of cheese, an egg, and coffee. I grabbed a banana and a little granola bar thing for later in the day.

This is my kitchen. Quite a spread. The little device to the right just behind a plate with a roll and cheese, is an egg boiler. Magical!

Here's the inside of my fridge, stocked nicely.

The very neat coffee machine and it also makes hot chocolate!

This morning I awoke, to the left over bread from yesterday plus 3 new rolls! I need to start eating that bread! In the fridge was also a nice glass of freshly chopped fruit, which I devoured.

In Wageningen

2011-03-26T07:30:00.002+01:00

Thursday afternoon I flew back to the Netherlands - this time for a visit to Wageningen. It is pronounced Vahg-ehn-ing-en. But on the g's try to put a bit of a back of the throat growl. Dutch is a back of the throat kind of language. I always mess up words. Usually I have to write them down, say them about 5 times, or just give up.

I am here for a week. In a couple of days I will post some pics and info about where I'm staying. The place is super cute and I would just love it if people I know could come here and experience it. Wageningen isn't exactly the tourist destination. It's a big univeristy town. There are more students here than residents. It does have an awesome cheese shop, I remember from my last visit.

This visit was to present my mid-term thesis presentation and then I have class next week. Well, so far so good. Yesterday I gave my presentation and I hate hate hate hate hate giving presentations. I am always so nervous. I can't eat the meal before, my temperature rises, my heart beats fasten, I fidget, I speak way too fast. I was told I did fine. It wasn't stellar, but I was animated and got my points across, although I spoke at lightning speed. That's not really good for an audience whose second or third or fourth language is English. I felt that I would faint at one point, partly because I skipped lunch, partly because I was talking so fast I wasn't breathing properly, and I think partly because of the nerves in general. But thankfully, I did not collapse on the floor. I got some good questions and good discussion going about my topic. And unless you're into multi-criteria evaluation and sensitivity analyses, you probably don't really want to hear more about it.

I had a few beers with a classmate then went back to my super cute lodging and basically collapsed. I needed that collapse and total release of stress.

I had this great store bought salad. A store here called Albert Heijn (Hine) sells these prepackaged salads. They are so up my alley. Pasta, greens, croutons, dressing are the basic ingredients. Then depending on the "flavor" you may get roasted veggies; apples and cheese; or if you eat meat, chicken or salmon or whatever else they decide to put together. And they are cheap. Usually around 3-4 euros for a box that is as big as your head, as long as you don't have a Charlie Brown head.

Pictures are coming soon of the place and of course I already have funny stories to tell you.

Swans.

2011-03-16T16:36:00.002+01:00

I don't care what people say. Swans are bastards.

Before moving to Stavanger, my interactions with swans were always very distant. There'd be the random swan in a pond in an office building, but that was all. I guess Texas is just not a swan habitat. Swans can be found on any body of water here. They're in the fjord, the ponds, the lakes. I'm sure they'd be in the harbor if it wasn't for the big fishing and cruise ships and other watercrafts.

I have found that the swans are really territorial and aggressive, especially if there is a dog around.

The new place has a pond within walking distance and it's part of our afternoon walk route. Artemis really enjoys it. She can play in the shallow water, sniff the duck feathers on the ground, etc. The swans, however, have different ideas about what the dog-pond interactions should incorporate.

Here is a case in point about what bastards swans are. We were walking along the path beside the pond and Artemis stood on the edge and looked out. There is a small drop between the earth and water. There's not a shoreline in this part. So Artemis is surveying the land. The swan sees Artemis and puffs up its wings. Then its friend does the same. These guys are not even near us. As we start walking again, they start hissing! We keep walking and they swim along beside us, hissing, keeping their wings raised up. Now we are by the shoreline. Artemis tramples in the water, sniffs it, bites it. Meanwhile, the swans are moving faster towards us. Hissing. Bastards. I have to drag Artemis along because she has no idea what is going on. She's not interested in the swans. She's interested in the water and maybe the ducks further along the path. What she would give to sniff their butts. Finally I get Artemis to start moving along again but the swans still follow us and watch us until we have moved along the path where it isn't really by the water anymore.

Bastards.

New place means new commute

2011-03-04T14:41:00.005+01:00

We are now in our new residence. For Austin, it is his 4th in Stavanger and my 3rd. While there are those pesky annoyances with moving to a new place, it is also allowing us to see other parts of the city in a more intimate environment than we would otherwise. If we ever do decide to buy a place here, we will have a better idea what it means to live in certain areas.

So, our new place is located near here.

Vis større kart

It's an entirely new area for us in the sense that we knew a few shops nearby but never spent time here. We are in walking distance to a dog park and dog training facility. On the way to the dog park, we pass a school and there is even a little pond with a healthy bird population. A little playground is by the pond, too. We do still like slides and swings.

Also, in walking distance, but a little bit longer walk, there is an ice skating rink. And yesterday I bought ice skates at Fretex (Norwegian Salvation Army) for about the equivalent of 5 USD. Also not far are 2 bowling alleys and a salon and spa. We also have a nice grocery store about 8 minutes walking from our place. Then the Fretex is just another 2 minutes further and there is a large hypermart as well. They are basically like Wal-Mart. Now this is all we know without a lot of big adventures.

My bus route is actually about the same length of time as it was at the old place. UiS is directly on the other side of a forested area and there are no roads through it. Since I can't drive the manual on my own yet, Austin drives to work in less than 10 minutes. My route to work is different from my route home. The route to work is nothing special - straight downtown, switch to another bus that goes to the Uni. That's fine. Nothing is open so early anyhow. My route home from work is different. I take a bus to the hospital and then switch to my bus home.

Which brings me to my adventures today. Even though I have known for the last couple of years that there is an organic farm and store at the top of the hill from UiS, I have not been to it. We have been to the store in the downtown so I didn't think much of it. Plus, it is in the other direction than my previous bus routes. Today, I just barely missed the bus and had 30 minutes to kill. So I walked the 8 minutes to the farm/store. It was nice and it was fun. I can't believe I never went before. I picked up dinner.

Tonight we will have a kind of stir-fry with veg bratwursts.

The regular grocery stores have meat replacements and although I really like the veggie schnitzel, one does like variety. The farm/store has veg bratwursts, "beef" tips, and other things. I may even try their veg hot dogs. We bought a Finnish brand and it was like cardboard. Actually, I think cardboard may have more flavor.

This is the road to the farm. You see it at the left.

And this is the University. My building is in the distance.

This video shows the farm first then pans through the bus stop and then you see UiS.

Then I caught my bus as I meant to and stopped at the hospital. Supposedly, I should have 3 minutes to transfer but the bus is always late or the connection is always early. In order that I do not have to stand on the street for 15 minutes, I have decided that I can stop at a bakery between my stops. Yum. I picked up a loaf of fresh bread and 2 cheese danishes for breakfast tomorrow. I'm not sure what Austin's gonna eat.

Apartment decorated

2011-02-26T19:42:00.009+01:00

Okay. We've really dragged our heels on this one. Here are pictures of the current apartment which is soon to be the old apartment. Yes, we're moving.

You may recall this post about our new place and the discussion about what to do with our books.

Just for the record, our entire living space, including a semi-insulated storage area is 37.5 square meters (~400 sq ft). If you don't count the storage area, it is about 30 square meters (~320 sq ft). That's smaller than my first apartment.

This first view is of the front door-entry area and the kitchen.

The next view is of the kitchen head on.

Our lovely fridge and fruit basket. We added the little lamp because there was not adequate lighting in the kitchen. It makes a huge difference if you can actually see what you're chopping.

View of the entry and into the living room.

Another view of the living room from the entry. You can see my first painting purchase to the left of the window. I bought it 13 years ago. I love that painting. Unfortunately, I made a starving artist from it. When I bought it, the artist told me that she promised herself that if she sold just one painting, she'd continue painting. If not, she'd go back to school. It is called "The Freeing of the Seducee."

View of the living room from the bedroom. I realized a few days ago that the four square painting would fit perfectly in the blank space between the book case and the other pictures. It's just been leaning on against the wall. The "coffee" table is actually a dining room table with the legs sawed down. We wanted to be able to have a table that grew if we were entertaining. It acts as the dining table as well. The little wicker round under it has 3 siblings and we use these to gather around the table.

Another view of the living room, but this one is into the bedroom. This view is exactly opposite of the previous. So the paintings are behind you.

Sometimes it's easier to just close the curtain instead of the door. It started as a compromise when we had white, sheer curtains instead of the red curtains. (The white sheers came with the place.) We'd put the black and tan curtain down so Austin would have darkness for sleeping but it would allow some air circulation. I love the blue case. We bought it at a funky store here called Unika. The chairs are covered with swim wraps because they are this really ugly yellow (which I love) but are a kind of velour material and Artemis's hair would just never come off. They are Fretex.

Behind those green curtains, is my closet! The lamp is metal and has little holes all in it. I really like it. You can't see the detail on the curtains here, but they are decorated with very small gold beads in a kind of filligree design.

The bedroom. Again, we have a kind of funky light in there. It's really not as bright as the picture shows. It's a soft light and is all colorful. It's nice, but we have little lamps on our headboard for reading. We use to have dark blue curtains but we were taking off the painted over wallpaper, so that wall is unfinished right now.

Here are some bookshelves we installed. There's another one in the living room just above the coat rack. We really liked the red bookshelf even though it isn't very practical. On the left is Austin's closet. There is a door but it's broken. We've been told for the last 15 months that some new custom built cabinets were coming to replace these.

Here's the bathroom/laundry. A lot of apartments here have the washing machine in the bathroom. We don't have a dryer. We have a foldable drying rack that works pretty well. Because the walls are all tile, we use these great suction cup hooks and baskets from Lucky Duck for everything.

This is back in the bedroom. This wall is completely cement, so we could never hang the maps. We bought these cheesy stick on decorations from Søstrene Grene because I really wanted something on the wall.

Well, now that I finally got around to posting pics of the place, we are in the middle of moving. So hopefully the next place we will show pics sooner rather than later. It's giant compared to here - about 90 square meters (~960 sq ft).

Sardines

2011-02-16T16:39:00.004+01:00

Some time ago we bought some sardines at the store. Here is my lunch from some time in early January. Sardines in tomato sauce with ciabatta and feta.

Valentine's Power Outage & Peruvian Peanut Potato Soup

2011-02-16T16:04:00.004+01:00

Valentine's Day has never been a big holiday for us. Probably the biggest reason is because in the beginning, we were not together on Valentine's Day and then when we were actually living in the same city, we often were not together on the holiday. So, we don't usually do anything when we are together. So it suits fine that Valentine's Day isn't really celebrated here in Norway. Besides, the Sunday before was Mother's Day.

We spent the evening looking around at apartments. So romantic. But Austin did arrange for a wide power outage in the area so that we would have light candles and talk in the semi-darkness. (Actually, we surfed the internet on our phones. But we did light a candle.)

We went to cook dinner the next day and I discovered that the oven did not work. We have yet to figure out the reset button. The stovetop works. I didn't discover the oven malfunction until after I had opened up a can of croissants to be baked. So, I did what any half-way creative person who cooks a lot of Asian food. Steam the suckers!

The first one was tested and it was fine. The second one was cooked in a pan with a little oil to crisp.

The last four croissants were just steamed and they were just fine. It takes a little bit longer to steam them. Baking should only take 10-12 minutes, but steaming takes about 20-25 minutes. I recommend it just for giggles.

While I'm sharing our dinner, I might as well show you the soup we had: Peruvian Peanut Potato soup from VegNews Magazine.

We made this last week and had leftovers. So to jazz it up, we added some chopped mushrooms, white beans, garbanzo beans, chili flakes (lots), and cream. Hey, we're not vegan, so the cream is fine by us. It was tasty.

Gilad Is My Trainer

2011-02-15T15:50:00.004+01:00

This winter has not been very kind to my belly. Several people I have talked with have also had the same issue this winter. I guess it's because this winter has been cloudier than last winter. It's definitely warmer though.

I took up running in November and I did enjoy it. Then it snowed and iced. I haven't been able to get myself really up for it. It's been cold, but the wind has been the worst.

In an effort to keep up some kind of exercise, I decided that I would get some aerobics DVDs. I searched on line one evening and came across several glowing recommendations for a particular step aerobics video (it's #3). I looked for it online and there were two options. I could purchase from the fitness guru's website and pay almost 50 USD for it to be shipped here or I could purchase from a seller on Amazon for around 20 USD total. The only thing is, it would take 6-8 weeks to make it here. I went ahead and purchased two other videos that would arrive in a week's time from another seller so that I could get started on that growing belly of mine.

Today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my step aerobics DVD with the fitness guru arrived! I was probably a little too happy. I watched it and now I know what I'm getting into.

Check back in a week and see if I can step at all.

New beer

2011-02-04T08:10:00.004+01:00

Austin and I went out last night to Cardinal for a beer or two and then we were going to mosey on over to Resept for dinner. Before we left our place, I said that I wanted to try a new beer tonight. Aegir has a new blonde on tap, but it was already out when we got there. That was what we each were hoping to drink when we saw it. So sad. Austin got the Nøgne Ø Bitter. A good normal bitter. I opted for the Geek Bacon beer. It comes in a .4 liter glass because it is strong. I'm not sure if it is because it's strong taste-wise or strong alcohol-wise. I didn't realize that it was actually a bacon beer. I thought it was some geek joke I did not understand. My first drink I thought it was dark and rich and had a bit of chocolate or coffee to it. Then Austin tasted it and said, "Yeah, I can taste the bacon." Then I really smelled it. I could smell the smoky flavor like I was standing over a smoker. While this was kind of nice at first, by the end of the glass, I was trying not to inhale over my glass.

Then we were off to the second glass of beer for the night. Austin got an India Pale Ale and I got this Dutch beer. It was tasty, but it is hard to say exactly how good it was because the bacon beer messed up my taste. It translates to "Young and Unspoiled." I will have to try it again.

Then we were off to have dinner. Resept is a very popular vegan restaurant in Stavanger. It is really tasty. The menu changes so you can go after a few months and have something different altogether. Austin had a spicy Indian masala dish with rice, chickpeas, and chili mangos. I had a tofu, veggie, noodle dish with plum sauce. It countered the bacon beer.

On my way!

2011-01-28T15:09:00.003+01:00

In August 2009, I started my MSc program with the expected finish date to be June 2012. Over the first year, my excitement increasingly decreased as I realized I had to wait two more years to finish. Then the second year began and I started thinking about how I was still not going to be finished for over a year. The plus side was that I could have a long time to write my thesis and if I wanted, I could go for an internship. It seemed nice at first because the third year also coincided with the possibility that I would not have funding for a job so then I could easily transfer to full-time student position. Then the idea of not having funding for a job made me think that maybe I should apply for jobs. It's really hard to get a job when you have to tell them that you will be out for about a week every few months so you can go to class or work on your thesis, etc. As the winter wore on, I decided I would try really, really hard to finish early.

So in November 2010, I finished my internship exemption essay and portfolio and submitted it in early December. This basically explained my credentials and experience of why I don't need to go to an internship. Thankfully, but predictably, my internship requirement was waived. Good thing, too. The students that have to fulfill the requirement are not getting paid in their internship positions. I think it's a crime. I thought there would be some kind of law about it. It's basically slave labor. The companies have no incentive to pay the student because the student must have an internship to graduate. Anyhow, one requirement down.

The next thing to do was start the thesis. Unlike the MSc thesis programs that I have had exposure to, this program requires a proposal, a mid-term presentation, a written thesis, and an oral defense. I found my advisor, co-advisor, and a professor (which is not just any instructor, they must have a title of Professor). The professor is the one who will officially admit the thesis proposal and the continuation of the research. I worked like crazy (compared to my normal student work) and submitted my proposal at the start of January. The Professor did not like it. He said that the scientific contribution was not clear. So I had to work on the proposal and I did. I changed a lot of things, did a lot of rewriting, making some things vague, and making some things elaborated but not detailed. It went through another review round with my advisors and then I submitted it again to the Professor.

Today I got official approval. I have to make a couple of minor edits to the proposal, but then I can officially move forward and schedule my mid-term presentation.

So, yeah, I need to get back to that thesis now.

A hike around Flatafjellet

2011-01-23T09:14:00.004+01:00

Yesterday we took a great hike around Flatafjellet, a hill on the other side of Gandsfjord from us, over near the town of Dale. The Sandness kommune website has maps for a bunch of trails in that area, and I've wanted to hike around there for a long time. Now that we have a car, it's much easier to do that kind of stuff :)

We had good weather for the hike (by local standards!), and we gave ourselves plenty of time to do it. Overall the hike was largely a series of climbs followed by flat stretches, passing by Dalevatn, heading up to the pass between Flatafjellet and Lifjellet. Then it's down to the other side of the mountain. One section goes along a pretty steep slope, and that was a little dicey, especially in the rain. Artemis didn't have any problems, but she's got four legs; Lisa and I both had to take our time to avoid a tumble. Eventually we all made it through, though, and the end of the hike was a quick breeze through some woods on a nice, even trail. Even though we thought we'd given ourselves plenty of time, the light was seriously starting to fade by the time we got to the car; we made a note to remember flashlights next time.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I'm definitely looking forward to more hikes like this. If I'm energetic enough this summer, I'd like to try completing the Lysefjorden Rundt ("around the Lysefjord"), but we'll see...

Here's the map:

View Around Flatafjellet in a larger map

And a few choice pics:

Austin on the early parts of the trail.
Dalevatn.
Lisa in the pass.
A nice view out of the pass.

You can see all of the pics here.

Thing 1 & Thing 2 Go to the Mountains, Tire of Vegetable Soup, and Find Happiness in Tex-Mex

2011-01-16T17:27:00.006+01:00

The day started like it always did for Thing 1 & Thing 2, with plenty of yawning...

...and coffee...

Today was a big day since they were going to drive into the mountains for a much-needed vacation (Things, as you may know, work very hard.) So they packed the car and hit the road...

...and after many hours of driving through dangerous, ice-covered mountains, they made it to their cabin.

As these things always go,they were both soon hungry! Thing 1 and Thing 2 put their heads together and decided that the best thing to do was to make some food.

(The dog also thought this was a fine idea.)

And so things went for a few days, but eventually Thing 1 and Thing 2 started got a little bored with vegetable soup and oatmeal.

But then they had great idea. "We should eat...SOMETHING ELSE!", they cried.

The pondered the many options, and finally determined that there was only one place that could lift them out of their culinary rut: Mexico.

So once again they packed the car and hit the road. They drove and drove, and they eventually reached the ocean. Alas, the car would cross it.

What to do? Thing 1 and Thing 2 pondered their options, and they decided that if they couldn't go to Mexico then they would go to...Mexico!

And it was good :)

Acclimating

2011-01-14T15:46:00.002+01:00

I know that I'm getting use to the cold. I just went outside so Artemis could tromp around in 4.5C (about 40F):

with wet hair (and it's really long these days)
no socks
wearing Crocs (but they are lined)
with blousy-legged clamdiggers
a sweatshirt
drinking a cold glass of water

and thought it was a pretty comfortable mix. Of course, it wasn't raining or snowing and the wind wasn't blowing, but the sun has been tucked back behind the clouds all day.

I'm not sure how I will handle Texas summers in the future now!

An International Breakfast

2011-01-11T09:05:00.004+01:00

Breakfast is a great meal. It's so diverse. You can go sweet or savory; simple or complex. I love a complexly delicious but simple breakfast. Today, I had one and it was a bit international to boot!

The coffee mug is from Poland and contains a very nice coffee, Monsooned or Malabar, that we buy at the Kafehuset in the sentrum mixed with a bit of milk.

The plate is from the Netherlands but it's really a Finnish company. On this plate is a yummy treat! You may know that my very good friend, Bee, who I've known for ages is Persian. Growing up, I ate all kinds of "strange" things because of course her mom would go to the Middle Eastern market and bring home goods. It was at her house that I ate my first pomegranite, my first stuffed zucchini/eggplant (which is another story and I may tell you sometime), my first taste of caviar. I also learned of halwa. We ate plain halwa on bread with butter. The plain halwa tastes similar to peanut butter in a way. Over the years, I have tried to find another tasty halwa. Sometimes I have and other times not. Saturday, we were in the Middle Eastern market in the sentrum and I saw....chocolate halwa. How could I not buy it! So on that plate, you see a slice of rye bread (from our Norwegian chef landlord), toasted, topped with butter and chocolate halwa. It. is. delicious.

Just a side note. I love that we live in a town of 80,000-120,000, depending on how you much of the area you include, and we have two Middle Eastern markets and two Asian markets in the downtown area alone.

You will also notice a cup with some milk and a plastic jug with the same liquid. My office mate went home to Beijing over the holidays and brought us back a bean juicer. Before you get grossed out, it's really good, especially if you add a small bit of sugar. This juicer is pretty complicated. The beans have to be cooked or you can get poisoned. (Yes, eating raw or undercooked beans can be worse than raw or undercooked meat.) The juicer has a heating element. Soak the beans overnight, throw them with some water into the juicer (it's really a blender) and voila! That's all fine and dandy but you are not looking at bean juice. We were given a fancy juicer. It can make rice, peanut, fruit, bean, veggie, or combinations of them into a drink. It has not only a heating element, but a cooling element. So in my glass in the photo, you see banana milk with a little bit of ground flax seed on top.

The glass is turned the wrong way, but J gave a set of Texas-themed kitchen items to Austin when he moved in December 2008. The glass has a big star of Texas on it in gold.

My Norwegian-Persian-Chinese breakfast served on Polish-Dutch-Finnish-Texas dishes was good to the say least.

An emphatically white Christmas

2010-12-25T17:06:00.003+01:00

Merry Christmas again! We've had a great Christmas Eve and day here, two days largely defined by two things: snow and being lazy. Yesterday (Christmas eve) it snowed like the Dickens; coincidentally, we've watched both "Scrooged" and "The Muppet Christmas Carol" in the past 24 hours. The weather site we use claimed we would get 0-0.3 mm of precipitation. We can only assume that they meant Norwegian millimeters, because it seemed more like a foot. We've had fun tromping through the snow, Lisa gave the truger a short spin, and I practiced putting on snow chains for our trip into the mountains next week.

One gift we got for ourselves this year was a new (well, slightly used) Nikon D60 digital SLR camera. A friend of ours recently loaned us his D40, and we were so impressed that we just had to get one of our own. The result, oh lucky reader, is that you now get stunning, high-res photos of...snow and our laziness! With no further ado, here are some pics of our Christmas:

The view out west across Hafrsfjord:

Lisa down near the water:

Trees near the house:

Trees, water, and a house:

A horse, mere seconds before he and his cohort knocked down the fence and ran free (I'm not kidding!):

Artemis wondering why we don't let her chase the horses:

And, as promised, sloth:

You can see all of the photos here.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T11:30:00.003+01:00

We are having ourselves a very white Christmas.

It started snowing yesterday and as far as we can tell, it has yet to stop. It's a good excuse for staying inside, drinking lots of wassail, and watching cheesy Christmas movies from the 80's and cheesy Christmas cartoons from the 60's.

Hope you are enjoying the time with your family and friends!