You never get a second chance…

citysafari — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:10:16 +0000

These are my first impressions of Norway and Norwegians. Due to the rule of first impressions, they are irreversible and there will never be another opportunity to change them.

Impression #1: Norwegian women are beastily strong.

As I boarded my flight from New York to Norway, I was heaving to get my carry-on into the overhead bin. I’d spent the night before strategizing on how to close it, since it looked a lot like a boa constrictor trying to swallow a dinosaur. At the final hour, my dear friend Jen ordered me to take OUT my new red Le Creuset cast iron braising pot, which weighs approximately 40 pounds all on its own. They do have pots in Norway. But even without it, the suitcase was bursting and unwieldy. A tall, blond Norwegian woman in her 50s saw me straining to lift it and intercepted me mid-heave. “I’ll put that up for you” she said, taking the bag out of my hands before I could protest. Then she flung it into the overhead with the ease of a WWF wrestler hurling an opponent across the ring.

I was impressed. But it takes more than a single incident to make an impression on me. It takes TWO.

After the flight, I retrieved my two additional checked bags at Oslo airport’s baggage claim. To be clear, they were both large, but one of them could literally fit my 6′2″ brother in it. He’d need to be chopped up, but still, he would fit. We later dubbed this one, The Coffin. The Coffin required payment of penalty fees to take its overweight ass onto the plane. I could barely even think about lifting it.

At the airport, Fab advised me to put all 3 of my bags on a luggage cart and wheel them to the train. After the train ride, he would meet me at Oslo station where we would take a cab to the apartment. Fabio had dealt with masses of luggage during his own move and would never leave me in a lurch, so even though I’d never dealt with behemoths like this on my own, I was sure I could manage.

I purchased my train ticket to Oslo at one of the kiosks because I really loathe talking to people if I can have a computer do it for me instead. The entire transaction was in Norwegian. I don’t speak Norwegian. I don’t read Norwegian. I wouldn’t have even known the words were Norwegian, and not Ukranian or Hindi, except that I knew for certain I was in Norway at the time.

Apparently, I bought the wrong ticket. I was supposed to buy a ticket for the express train, which efficiently leaves every 8 minutes and has no steps to climb up. Instead, I purchased a ticket for the local train, which leaves once an hour and has 4 king-kong monster steps leading up to the seating area. Me and The Coffin looked up at the towering steps in defeat. But the smiley Norwegian train conductor came to my rescue! HE would put the bags onto the train. I hoped he would take them off as well, but when I arrived in Oslo, neither the train conductor nor my honey were anywhere to be found.

As the train idled at the station, I managed to drag my carryon and suitcase #1 down the steps. ker-plunk. ker-plunk. ker-plunk. ker-splat. Two down, but The Coffin was still on board.

I waited for the other passengers to disembark, The Coffin leering at me from the top of the steps. Disembarking, a sweet, pixie-ish Norwegian asked - Was this bag mine? I said ’Yes’, as she made a move to lift it. ‘No! NO!’ I shrieked, ‘Don’t try! It’s TOO heavy! You’ll hurt yourself!’ To my astoundment, she gracefully picked up the monster truck sized luggage and placed it on the platform beside me.

Fabio arrived mere seconds later with beautiful pink lilies, but sadly for him, not too late to deal with The Coffin. After the cab ride, our apartment was on the 4th floor… no elevator. We could only hope to run into a Norwegian woman on the first floor of our building…

Supernanny to the rescue

citysafari — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:29:38 +0000

Let’s play the word association game. I say black, you say white. I say palm, you say tree. I say Norway, you say fjords, Viking or reindeer. Whatever you say, I know you’re not gonna pull the words hot, sultry or steamy out of your word toy box.

Oslo, Norway is my home for Summer 2008. Fabio, my Italian boyfriend, has seduced me into joining him here, with his impressive spaghetti-twirling skills, wonderful sense of adventure, and willingness to joke around with me about things like foreign good-luck pigs and gnomes. I adore him.

For my second weekend in Oslo, my sweet man invited me to join him for a business trip to Madrid. I hesitated momentarily, thinking 7 days might be too short for even me to be bored and ready to leave my new city for a weekend trip to Spain. But then Google Maps showed me the way; Madrid is nowhere near the Arctic Circle while Oslo is its next door neighbor and BFF. Even a third grader could tell you it was gonna be a helluvalot hotter in Madrid than Oslo in June, and I like me some summer heat.

The day of my departure, irony struck. As I departed from Oslo, it was 82-degrees Fahrenheit; the hottest place in all of Europe. Disembarking from the plane in Madrid, my pinky toes whimpered against the chilly wind in my open toe sandals. It was blowing and in the 60s. The grey Spanish clouds were laughing so hard they nearly wet their cloud pants.

Regardless, Madrid was approximately 1000 times more beautiful than I remembered. Our weekend was freaking fiesta-riffic, despite needing to wear 5 of my cotton t-shirts, 2 sundresses, a headscarf and all my jewelry to stay warm on the way to the Prado.

Fabio and I were returning to Oslo on different flights. The business traveller was flying direct, while I had a short layover in Germany. In the meantime, a cold front was colliding with a warm front directly over the airport in my connecting city of Frankfurt, forming a big, fat storm sandwich with a side of fuck-me french fries.

Consequently, my flight to Frankfurt was delayed, circling Frankfurt until the final Oslo flight for the night had left without me. So I arrived in Frankfurt alone and flightless, knowing only enough German to ask for a piece of cheese really nicely and then politely thank someone for it.

My expectations at this point were set to American standards. I anticipated a troubled night of semi-sleep on sticky vinyl waiting area seats, clutching my luggage fearfully to my chest, preceded by begging airline reps for a $5.00 dinner vouchers valid at any fast food restaurant in the airport. I clearly hadn’t much experience with the German stereotype of efficiency and preciseness. I’ll tell you how it really went down.

A makeupless, stern, yet somehow kindly, fraulein met me at the airline customer service desk. She tidied up the mess like a German Supernanny. I’ll take care of all this for you and you had better like it, leipshin. She had answers to all my questions. Of course the airline would provide a hotel for the night. And of course transportation would be included. How dare you even ask about dinner and breakfast… Of course!

Not believing the fraulein supernanny, I frantically purchased an emergency bag of salt-and-pepper potato chips on my way to the bus, thinking I could ration 10 chips for dinner and the other 10 for breakfast so I wouldn’t have to consider devouring a bar of bathroom soap or downing a travel-sized shower gel.

A cruise ship-sized luxury bus with plush seats was waiting outside to shuttle little me and the rest of the international refugees to the hotel. In just 10 minutes, I was at the hotel, checked-in by 15, and by 20 I was nibbling on a salad of fresh mesclun greens with smoked salmon and cucumber in the hotel restaurant.

I fell asleep with a smile of my face snuggled beneath a puffy down duvet after a squeeky clean hot shower. So happy to be stuck in Frankfurt and not Bangledesh or Tuscaloosa.

City Safari

You never get a second chance…

Supernanny to the rescue