Bye Norway

I wanted to sneak in one more post before I return to Buffalo tomorrow.  I spent the day on a day trip all around Norway looking at mountains, fjords, and waterfalls.  I have been on three trains, a bus, and a boat today.  The scenery was breathtaking and I took a million pictures.

I never want to leave.  I can’t stand it anymore.  I feel like I have spent the day with an ex-boyfriend I am still in love with.  This has been an amazing experience and I am so glad I came.  This trip has not turned out how I thought it would.  Nothing I imagined back home in Buffalo could have prepared me for the depth of feeling I have experienced while in Norway.  My heart and mind have been blown wide open.  I have a suspicion there is still a lot to be experienced as a result of this trip.      

I want to thank everyone who has commented and emailed in the last few days.  I know that no matter where I am in the world, I am lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.   

I Okay

Dear Norway,

You can keep me out, but you can’t keep me down.  I will walk up your mountains, I will eat your reindeer, and I will explore your fjords by train, bus and boat.  I don’t really understand why you don’t want me, but I still love you.  So there.

Love,

Kæte

I Sad

After I played my audition, as the jury was deliberating, I realized how badly I wanted this job.  I had this funny moment where it suddenly dawned on me that I wanted nothing more than to move to Norway.  Leading up to the audition I felt very wary of thinking too much about actually winning.  But this morning I woke up and I felt total sure that I wanted the job, total sure that I loved Bergen, and totally sure that I was in fact going to win.   I played well.

There were only two people auditioning for this job.  . 

I came in second.

Interestingly, I feel fine about the results from a viola perspective.  I don’t know what they were looking for, but I felt happy with how I played.  I sounded like myself, which isn’t always the case.  I felt like I showed the jury an honest representation of who they would be hiring if they chose to hire me.  Surprisingly, my viola feelings are not hurt very much at all. 

But I really thought I was going to move here.  I really allowed myself to look at this town as if I were about to move here.  And now I am really heartbroken.  I thought that if I followed my little whim all the way to Norway, something magical would happen. 

I don’t really understand.

Bergen is Rainy

I am totally digging Bergen, Norway.  It has been raining cats and dogs, and it is pretty cold, but the people are super friendly and the whole place looks like a postcard.  Rumor has it that it will be sunny and warm on Friday, so I am looking forward to seeing this place in all of it’s glory. 

Traveling alone (in a country I know next to nothing about) is really interesting.  It was easy for me to jump on the plane and come to Norway, but now that I am here I feel pretty shy.  It is hard for me to admit I have no idea what I am doing, but I reveal myself in a thousand different ways with every interaction that I have here.   This is why I came here and why I would move here if I won the audition on Friday- to feel challenged and to learn how to be okay with doing things that will probably make me look stupid.   So far the Norwegians have been very kind to this silly American.

I ate the most delicious piece of salmon I have ever tasted in the fish-market today.  I am going to try to bring some of that stuff home. 

One of the upsides of all of the rain is the rainy weather apparel.  Rain boots!  All of the kids (and many of the adults) wear them.  I think rain boots are adorable.  The kids get all decked out in full rain gear.  Rain coats, rain pants, and rain boots.  It’s pretty cute to see a group of ten six-year-olds all dressed in brightly colored plastic.

I was too shy to take a bunch of pictures, but the "traditional Norwegian breakfast" buffet at my hotel was pretty eye opening.  Apparently, Norwegians enjoy eating a variety of cold cuts and all manner of spreadable fish in the morning. 

Eww…spreadable fish.

I’ll write more later!

Whoa

Well.  I made it to Norway in one piece.   I am too tired to process anything right now.  I am also too tired to eat any of the weird smelly fish I see in every shop.  Bergen, Norway feels very far away from every other place, but it is cute and I am looking forward to wandering around tomorrow.  But first there will be sleeping.

Whim Accomplished

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware" -Martin Buber

I’m off to Norway.  Wish me luck people! 

Norwegian is Funny

Since I am leaving for Norway tomorrow, I thought tonight might be the perfect time to learn some Norwegian.  Ha!  Make sure you have the sound on when you click this.

I really hope I get the opportunity to use this phrase while I am in Norway.   I’m pretty sure that now that I know the word for cake (krumkake), I know all the Norwegian I am ever going to need.

Money

1 Norwegian krone = 0.158331 U.S. dollars

Uh oh.  I have a very bad feeling about my ability to understand how much money I will be spending next week.  I can barely keep track of my dollars- keeping track of my Norwegian kroner seems highly unlikely. 

Sunshine

So, I’m taking an audition in Norway. 

When I tell people I am taking an audition in Norway I get wide range of responses, from super positive, to insultingly grouchy.  But there is one factor almost everyone asks about: winter darkness.

How much darkness is there?

Frankly, until tonight I have been too scared to delve deeply into this issue.  At one point, before I bought my plane ticket, I saw a chart that indicated there was never a period of total darkness in Bergen, Norway.  Once I had that tidbit of information I pushed the whole issue out of my mind and into the box in under my bed labeled "Too Strange/Scary/Exciting To Think About Right Now." 

Well, tonight I mustered up the courage to figure out what is going on with the daylight in Bergen. 

In all of the following graphs Gray=Darkness, Blue=Dawn, Yellow=Sunshine, Red=Dusk

The numbers along the bottom of the graphs are the months, and the numbers along the right side of the graphs are the hours of the day.

Here is a daylight chart of Buffalo, NY

 

Look how sensibly the sun treats us Western New Yorkers.  Plenty of time for sleeping and for playing outside.  Thanks Sun!

Here is a daylight chart for Bergen, Norway:

Whaaaa?  Am I to understand there is only ONE hour of darkness in late June?!  I was worried about too much dark, now I’m worried about too much light.  Shove off, Sun!

Here is a daylight chart of Reykjavik, Iceland:

 

Dang!  Ain’t nobody sleeping in the summertime in Reykjavik!

Well, cheer up Reykjavikians, at least you don’t live at Amundson-Scott (the U.S. station on Antarctica):

The world is weird.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Wear Culottes

This afternoon my viola muscles were a little sore, so I decided to head to the mall instead of practicing.  I need some new outfits.  I need some outfits that say, "Although I am an American, I much less annoying than you think I am going to be, and I most certainly did NOT vote for George W. Bush."  Sadly, the Galleria Mall in Cheektowaga, NY does not contain any outfits that convey this message.  Most of the clothing I saw seemed to say "I AM AN AMERICAN.  I TALK TOO LOUDLY.  WHERE IS THE MCDONALD’S?"

I have definitely reached the age where my fashion sense has ceased to evolve with the times.  I am old.  Everything I saw at the mall seemed so absurd and hideous that I was tempted to take more pictures- but I restrained myself.  If I had whipped out my camera to take pictures of the racks of culottes then I would not only be too old for the mall, but I would also be too unabashedly freakish.   

I felt so overwhelmingly disturbed by the mall that at one point I put on the most redonkulous outfit I could find and took a picture of myself (in the privacy of the dressing room) with the intention of posting the pictures here.   The results were so horrifying that I am unable to follow through with the plan.  I just can’t do it.   I’ll just say this: the top was see-through, the pants were culottes, and the belt was a gold beaded strandy thing.   I was also wearing one of those weird crocheted painter’s hats with the teeny tiny bill. 

Alright, I’ll post one picture- the least incriminating of the bunch.

I know.