East ending

A British show called EastEnders is on right now. It's some kind of BBC soap-opera show that I've been hearing about for years.

So when it followed one of the news shows I keep on in the morning, I didn't change channels. It's been on in the background while I have been meandering about doing whatever it is I do during the day.

But I am constantly jumping because it will be semi-quiet for a while; then the characters will suddenly yell mean things at each other.

Must change channels. It's much too dramatic for me.

Some Stockholm

So other than a few comments here and there, I haven't posted so much about Stockholm. And reason is: We're really bad tourists. We ate good food and drank some beers, but we also spent a lot of time shopping.

(I did spend a happy morning in a great museum and that's coming soon, but in the meantime....)



Husband is a much better photographer than I am, so if you like any of the photographs, they are probably taken by him. Even though I am normally against logos, I like this one. It's from Stavanger to Oslo.



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This is part of Old Stockholm. I was on my way to the Modern Museum and realized that I read the map upside down. So I decided to enjoy being lost.


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Stockholm is located on fourteen different islands, so there are lots of bridges and water, as you may imagine. While I was lost I stopped for a bit to watch this fisherman. Though I never snapped exactly in time, he would raise and lower his net again and again and every single time, he only had one fish. I guess it's only waterboarding if it's a human, but still poor fish.


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This is our friend Kenneth. He works with Husband, but lives in Stockholm, so on that Friday he showed us around a bit. We had beers on a boat. Then we went to a bar which was a cavern. While we were in the bar which was really a cavern, he demonstrated how one picks up in a bar using bluetooth technology.


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We're smiling because we are glad we aren't picking up in bars anymore. So, afterwards, we all went to have Thai food with another couple who live in Hamburg. The husband is German and the wife is from Africa. Her native language is N!xau, which you might have heard in a movie called "The God's Must Be Crazy." I hadn't seen the movie, so she demonstrated. I tried to respond by demonstrating a little Norwegian. You'll only need one guess to figure out who was more successful.


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The Bush Administration is not popular here.


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Hey Claudia, you used to love Jason Mraz. You haven't mentioned him lately, but just in case you were wondering what he's been up to lately, I guess it's the music store circuit...on this day, he was doing a signing/mini-show in Stockholm.


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This is a park near the shopping center. Yes, I know it is horrible not to give the name of the park and the coordinates, etc., but we live in a small city which does not have really super shopping. And sometimes we really really need stuff. This is where the Norway Day celebration happened. See the flags behind Husband. We missed it.


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This is another great building. It's near the shopping as well. (Yep, other than the museum, we're really bad tourists...But it really was a lot of fun.)


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We were eating in a great Thai restaurant that was so kitchy that I will not tell you the name of it here, but seriously the best Thai we'd had quite possibly ever. It was highly recommended by both guidebooks and Stockholm dwellers and I will tell you the name if you are ever going.

We asked the waiter, when he was having a slow moment if he would take a shot of us together. He did and then when he looked at it, grimaced slightly, so I suspected it was not so good. I said, "How was it?" He said "Great." It wasn't, which is why there are photos of each of us here, but not of us together.

Note to waiter guy: It's a digital camera. I can check almost immediately.





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Other than the food, one of the really fun things about the restaurant was that it was in a really cool part of town called Sofo. So when we were done we walked most of the way back home. The neighborhood was lively and awake. Even the kid's playgrounds were cool.


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If you are ever in Sweden and forget to buy a souvenir, if you are the souvenir-ing type, no worries. Just pick up a reindeer skin at the airport. (In case you can't read it clearly, that is 895 SEK, which is about $150 USD.)



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And as in most European airports, there is a fast food combo for everyone. Look closely at the signs. Would you rather have a pizza/soft drink, heineken/pizza, lasagne/red wine or a pirog/soft drink.


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And that is almost the end of the story.


=========================

The giant sign with Husband standing next to it is usually a pretty good indication that we're almost home.


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But then I always know it for sure when I pass by my second favorite fanny.

Poor, Poor Hassan

A few weeks before we got married, Husband and I visited Stavanger.

Really, it was for me to check out the town, for him to work and for us to find a home.

While he went to the office, I was escorted by a woman named Tune (Tooooo-NAH) who had been hired to show me around and start the process of acclimation.

Along with driving me about and helping me learn, she also gave me this book.



I flipped through the pages and read about doctors and shopping and setting up house. Then I came to this page and gasped...



There was no way, I was going to get severe culture shock. I am not a textbook person and am certainly not irritable and hostile.

I am cheery and flexible and up for anything. Plus, I am not one to get in funks often and when I do, they tend to be low level funks. (I have a pretty high funk-tolerence, so even when things are their most tragic, it's really not all that bad...)

All this to say, I was slightly wrong. I've been in a bit of a funk lately. And that funk has been coupled with slight irritability.

Also, while, I refuse to say I've been hostile, perhaps I have been a little bit edgy.



And there is no one reason, but a charming combination of, but not limited to, the following:

1) Time zones
I keep missing all the windows of time to talk to my peeps because they live in highly inconvenient places like Georgia and Hawaii and California and Colorado. They also have jobs and kids, so the windows are even shorter.

2) I hate Car.
Every dang time I want to do anything, no matter how mundane, I have to make a major plan involving rush hour, hills and timing.

3) No one can read my mind.
This poses a major challenge for sweet Husband. Lillie could offer pointers because she usually knows exactly what I need:

A vist


A shake right


A shake left



A little footsie


4) I cannot work.
We got a letter a few weeks ago saying that my application has been put into the pile and that they expect an answer within the next 8-10 months. This is a multi-multi-faceted issue, which goes even further to even if I did have the permits, then what would I do? So there we have isolation and identity all piled into the mix.

5) My pants feel snug.
I haven't been eating and drinking more, perhaps I am just hormonal today or maybe my pants hate me.

5) Language
I have been studying for weeks and am not fluent yet.

All of which are semi-ridiculous on a variety of levels and I am usually not one to indulge these kinds of thoughts, at least not seriously but I have been lately (or at least in the past week or so...).

But today is when I realized that I have lost my mind and need to buck up.

Janice Soprano came over for our regular Wednesday morning lesson.

We're working in a book called "Ny i Norge" ("New to Norway").

And as we were making our way through Leksjon 5, we flipped to "Hassan sender en e-post"



Hassan is one of the recurring characters in my textbook. (Among others, we have Tor, the Norsk teacher and his wife Liv. John, who is from USA who moved to Norway to be with his wife Anne. Urai from Thailand and Larissa, the au pair from Latvia and her young charges Ingrid and Gunnar.)

Hassan, we learned today, was sitting and thinking about his friend Ali in Iran.



Ali is in school in Teheran. Hassan is a refugee and lives in Nordby.



So Hassan goes to the library to write Ali an email to say hello and to tell all about the traveling he has been doing. When he's finished emailing and looking up news about Iran, he leaves the library.

He eats a banana and is a little bit sad. It is a long way from Norway to Iran.



But then he runs into Larissa and Ingrid. Hassan carries her grocery bags while they talk. Then he heads off.

He cycles home. Hassan is not so sad now. He goes to the movies and watches a French film about love.



I am reading this out loud and translating and my voice breaks a bit. Janice, misreading my cues, says "It's a little bit silly, but good vocabulary and lessons."

I say "It's the saddest thing I have ever read. Poor Hassan, he must be so lonely for his friends."

She stares at me for a long minute and says "Ahhhh I know these signs. You are feeling a little bit isolated. We have only been having lessons here at this table. We will fix this. You need to practice with more people. I will help you."

So from now on, we're going to have lessons at the coffee shop.

Go Car Go

This is Car.



This is my letter to Car.*

++++++++++++++++++
Dear Car,

I hate you.

Kisses,
Elizabeth
++++++++++++++++++


Car is part of Husband's contract. We pay a small fee every month and his company takes care of Car, including insurance, tolls, etc... It's a pretty sweet deal, really.

And before we got here, we talked about the fact that the vast majority of cars in Norway are stick shift. There are all sorts of expenses and tariffs that go along with having a car, especially an automatic, so our choices would be limited to manual transmissions.

I had been worried about it for months for two reasons:

1) I am a rotten driver. I lived in New York City for ten years and would drive once or twice a year. Maybe. Then drove Gertie, the Green Jeep (1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee) for the two years I lived in Atlanta. Gertie got me places and I felt safe. As far as I am concerned, cars are merely to get from Point A to Point B. I'd like a car that goes, please. If it has A/C and a way to hear music, even better. That's about it.

2) Also, it is a well-documented fact that my coordination is so poor that I can barely walk upright. Seriously, I trip. I walk into doors. I fall down. I cannot touch my nose with my finger. And forget about patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time.

I'm okay with this.

And I was okay with accepting what I thought was our one option.

So Husband signed the papers and checked all the boxes and Car was put on order.

In the meantime, they gave us a loaner----a loaner which was an automatic.

(It turns out that there are automatics in Norway. Quite a few, but they tend to be loaners from dealers. And we could have had an automatic, if Husband had known to ask, not to just trust the words on the standard paper. Oh well.)

So for six weeks, I went on field trips to places like the beach and IKEA, where I would learn the area and practice my rudimentary Norwegian on unsuspecting locals.

Here I am modeling the latest in Norwegian dishware. (Yep, I'm mature like that.)



Here's Erin trying it on as well. (Yep, she's mature like that, too.)



Then Husband got the call. Car was here.



And, still trying to be a good sport, I try to drive it.

And fail.

This is not good for House Durel.

And, again, trying to be a good sport, I try to drive it again.

And fail.

Again, this is not good for House Durel, not for what could be the obvious reason, but because it makes me feel defeated.

It is just one more thing that I cannot do.

Plus, it limits my options for a daily adventure to pretty much walking into town. Or hoping for an invitation from my more skilled friends.

(Or my one skilled friend. No one else of my friends here drives a manual. Also please, before you get judgey, out of all the people I know, only one has a car that is manual. So, while I may not know many people here yet, I know alot of people in other places.)

Both of which are great adventures, but knowing I only have two choices makes me feel trapped.

Plus, occasionally, I need to do something else, like go to the doctor or buy heavy things.

(Also, I once had an elfin grandmother. She was not actually an elf, but was very short and round. She said she couldn't but really just wouldn't drive. She was always tied to my grandfather's schedule or really, it was the other way around. I don't want to manipulate either of us that way. It's just not good for the family business.)

So sweet Husband tries to give Car back.

I thought it would be as easy as switching out a shirt at the department store.

This is how naïve I am.

And they say, "Of course, we'll take it back for the low, low price of 66,000 kroner."

That is not the price of the car.

That is the "buy-out-the-lease" fee, plus "some-more-money-because-we-registered-it-and-paid-some-taxes-or-something" fee.

And, frankly, sweet Husband was about to do it.

But, I couldn't let him.

So, the only thing to do was to figure out how to drive.

I know that millions of people do it every day. Also, I am not unintelligent. I know stuff. Surely, there was a wee part of my brain just waiting to be crammed with driving knowledge.

A few days ago, the husband of a friend said, "Elizabeth, it's such a good skill to have. You never know when you might use it."

I politely nodded while wracking my brain.

When would I need it?

This is what I came up with:

If I were in high school, in the middle of a field, at a party. If the only car available had a manual transmission and if the only other drivers were drunk and if I had to get home by Big D's curfew.

Then I would need to know.

But truthfully, it's much more likely I would be among the inebriated. I am not in high school any more. Also, I don't have a curfew.

So nope.

Why do manual transmissions even exist?** We don't live near the Autobahn. I don't care about fuel efficiency (Sorry.) And the highly regulated speed limits here are such that I cannot imagine many times that anyone even needs to shift all the way up to 4th, not to mention 5th and 6th. Seriously. Keep them for the Porsches, maybe, but quit it in the regular cars.

Which also to be clear. I have driven a manual in Atlanta. I drove one for two weeks while my Jeep was being repaired. In Atlanta, there are few hills, less roundabouts and if someone steps into the road, it's all on them. Not so here.

Also, to be clear, I can "go." I am also a pro at shifting. It's the whole "getting and staying started" where I have a problem.

But again, we have Car, so I have to figure it out.

Driving with Husband was not the most effective method of learning, so dear, dear friend Christine volunteered. She just started driving manual a few years ago for the exact same reason I am working on learning it now.

Her goal was not to get me good, but to get me going. She taught me the tricks and how to ride the clutch and which gear to cruise around the roundabouts.

I felt okay about it enough to try to go to the grocery store today.

I chose the non-rush hour times and set out.

To the nice men at the bottom of the street who smiled encourangely as I stalled going up the hill, then clapped when I got it going:

"Thanks. You helped me get started and made my day a little bit better."


To the honking people behind me when I stalled at the roundabout:

"I am so sorry that you are now two minutes later than you planned. I was flustered. I am suspecting not all of you are Norwegian because the noise you made was not nice. I do wish I knew where you were from because then I would talk smack about you and never visit your country. If you are Norwegian, here is a word for you to think about "empati." Please remember that once you had to learn to drive as well. I'll forgive you this time, but you made me cry and made my day a little bit worse. Also, fuck you."



*In case Car only understands Swedish...

Bäste Bil,

Jag hatar dig

Kyssar,
Elizabeth


** This is a rhetorical questions.

Emily Post

This weekend the cover story of the New York Times Magazine is "Exposed," a personal essay by a writer named Emily Gould.

As an avid follower of Gawker.com, I followed her posts during her tenure, which true to Gawker's tone, were snarky and insidery with a heavy dollop of schadenfreude.

In her own blogs, she was ultra-revealing of the details of her own life, as well as of many of the people around her.

And, about six months ago, I interviewed her for an article I wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (the AJC) called "Plugged in For Life."*



The story explains how Google works and that its memory is forever, if not longer. The portion of the interview with Gould that made it into the story was:

"We are all responsible for how we present ourselves online, " says Emily Gould, Gawker editor and author of the posts chronicling Page's story. "Shame is the new fame. People come to the public attention because of the things they do. It's really a culture of narcissism."


And, in the last paragrapher, in reference to the subject of the story, a man who earned internet noteriety...

Page is left with only two courses of action, said Gould at Gawker. "It's scary that it's out there for perpetuity, but put it into perspective: It's not easy to erase, but you can always do something bigger. And at the very least, the pace of the Internet turns over quickly.

"Just remember you're not the center of the universe."


"Exposed," this weekend's article in the NYT Magazine, chronicles her experiences blogging and the effects it's had on her psyche, her career and her personal life.

I would have liked to see it as less of an essay and more of a serious magazine article, a real in-depth look into blogging, buoyed by her own personal anecdotes.

But make no mistake; the article is well written and details the personal ramifications of a cultural phenomenon.

For the most part, the commenters have ripped her apart as self-centered, selfish and invasive, and deemed her words a waste of trees, and oxygen.

They've decided the cover forum should have been used for "more worthy" subjects such as the war in Iraq or the earthquake in China, which inarguably are worthy subjects.

But to decry blogging as an unworthy subject is wrong.

The magazine is not the newspaper.

Put simply, the newspaper is a quick turnaround medium for the news, with a time frame made even shorter by the ever quickening race to get it online and first.

The magazine, while a part of the NYT, is a general interest magazine, with a much more thoughtful lead-time, comprised of short and long-form articles, Q&As, essays and commentary. It covers a variety of subjects, which include politics, and culture, which also includes "pop" culture.

Right now, while blogging could arguably be called "pop" culture, it is just about three minutes to becoming "actual" culture, if it's not already.

According to data complied by Technorati, a company whose business it is to follow what's happening online, "there are over 175,000 new blogs (that’s just blogs) every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second."

And that's just what is happening today. That is not counting all the ones that existed yesterday or the ones that will be created tomorrow.

Blogging, in its most simple definition, is merely writing in an online forum.

And to that point, more than sixty years ago, George Orwell wrote an essay called "Why I Write."

And his essay is exactly that and well, well worth reading.

In it, he identifies the four reasons that any writer writes:

1) Sheer egotism: "a desire to be clever" and "to be remembered after death."

2) Aesthetic enthusiasm: "words and their right arrangement."

3) Historical purpose: "to find out the facts and store them up."

4) Political purpose: "a desire to push the world in a certain direction."

Orwell also said, "It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time."

Because you're reading this, on my blog, perhaps you wonder, why I write...

So the answer (in a attempt to organize into a semblance of order) is:

1) Historical purpose:

Chronicling our life for readers (family, friends and clickers) who are thousands of miles away and many time zones helps me feel more connected. And it helps them feel more involved and intouch with our day-to-day.

It's also a kind of picture diary/memoir of our life here, in both the adventure and the mundane.
_______


2) Aesthetic enthusiasm/Sheer egotism:

In my past life, I practiced daily deadline journalism.

Now as I morph into whatever career or life as it is unfolding, I need to keep my fingers limber and my perspective fresh.

Also, I think of one of Big D's mantras, which can be applied to almost anything, "If you don't use it, you lose it." So whatever it is that I "have," I don't want to lose.

Plus, one day, I want to be in a card catalogue. Seriously. One day, if they even still exist, I want to look up my name, check my shelf number, wander through the stacks and search for my book.
_______


3) Political purpose:

This one is a bit foggier, but it's solidly there...And it's wrapped up in community and perception.

To be clear: I wouldn't change a thing about my life. I love Husband and our pack more than anything in the entire, whole world. I couldn't have a better partner and family. We're on a great adventure and it's only getting better.

But make no mistake, over the past six months, we've gone through a lot...marriage, global move, job changes, family illness half a world away, just to name a few.

It's occasionally been a momentary challenge, but here's the thing: We're not the only ones. All over this town and the world, there are people in their first year of marriage or with sick parents or living as expats or wondering "what" they are when their roles have changed.

So that's a big part of "why I write." Before I moved here, I followed blogs of the day to day experiences of people in similar situations to help me gauge what was about to happen and it helped.

So while I'm still thinking about this one, it's a big part.
_______



So, saying blogging is a self-indulgent exercise and, by extension, to vilify Gould, is a rash over-simplification.

All over the world and the internet, blogging has changed the face of journalism. Now on every major newspaper staff there is at least one "mojo," which is short for "mobile journalist," a real-time reporter, who in a very real sense, writes by blogging. Then there is the "citizen journalist." Note the captions and bylines on some of the CNN photos of the earthquake. Those are from real people out in the world.

All over the world and the internet, bloggers are connecting through prayer groups and religious affiliations. Still others discuss the minutiae of the worldwide economy and how to fix it. Others contribute to computer code to make our machines run faster and better. Others dissect Man United strategy in their win over Chelsea.

And others detail their lives, which, if put on paper, would be shelved under "memoir."

So judge the flaws as you see them in Gould's essay, but don't judge Gould.

She's just a microcosm of what is really out there.

Every single day, every single second, millions of people blog. Millions more read their words.

Whether or not you may approve of the content is a personal decision. Hang out until the very last word or click away, it's up to you.

And if you don't like what someone is saying in their blog, get your own.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


*In case you want to read "Plugged in for Life"

AJC Main Edition
Date: Monday, 11/5/2007
Section Name: Living
Section Letter: C
Page: 1
Label:

PLUGGED IN FOR LIFE
Take care: 'Shame is the new fame' in the online world, and your public humiliation could last a long, long time.

ELIZABETH COBB / Staff
ecobb@ajc.com

When Atlantan John Fitzgerald Page fired off a scathing e-mail to a would-be online suitor at match.com, he couldn't have imagined the repercussions.

Page's e-mail wound its way through cyberspace, landing last month in the in-boxes of "The Bert Show" at Q100 and finding a high-profile home at the New York-based media gossip site Gawker.com, where it generated 285,000 page views and more than 3,000 reader comments, most of them attacks on Page's hubris. The AJC story about Page, which appeared Oct. 12, generated more than 135,000 page views.

A cautionary tale of the Internet age, Page's story is proof that everyone is game where scandal or public embarrassment is concerned, and the fallout can last into perpetuity.

Page's note to the woman who rebuffed him accused her of being out of shape and berated her for rejecting him despite his many qualities, which he listed as: "8.9 on [hotornot.com], Ivy League grad, Mensa member, can bench/squat/leg press over 1,200 lbs., has had lunch with the secretary of defense, has an MBA from the top school in the country, lives in a Buckhead high rise, drives a Beemer convertible, has been in 14 major motion pictures, was in Jezebel's Best Dressed, etc."

The simple stroke of the "send" key wound up getting Page branded "The Worst Person in the World" by Gawker. Offline it would have been a fleeting moment of shame forgotten in a matter of weeks. Not so online. In a world where 70 percent of North Americans are Internet users, according to InternetWorldStats.com, and the Google search engine is so pervasive it is now a verb, nothing online is ever completely forgotten. And in an era when potential employers, romantic suitors and friends Google each other as a first step in getting acquainted, a negative post can having a resounding effect. Today, when Page's name is plugged into the search engine, the Gawker post pops up second in the list of sites that contain his name. Unless he tops the scandal in popularity, that is most likely where it will stay.

"We are all responsible for how we present ourselves online, " says Emily Gould, Gawker editor and author of the posts chronicling Page's story. "Shame is the new fame. People come to the public attention because of the things they do. It's really a culture of narcissism."

Public scandal was once more commonly the domain of celebrities and politicians. And with the advent of Internet culture, their sins may be forgiven but never forgotten.

Paris Hilton has starred in a reality TV show, had a chart-topping record, written two best-selling books, walked thousands of red carpets, done a stint in jail and is great-granddaughter to the Hilton hotel founder. But Google her name. A page detailing her infamous sex tape, "1 Night in Paris, " leaked online in 2003, pops up third in the list.

Former N' Sync member Lance Bass says in his new book, "Out of Sync, " that his mother discovered he was gay by Googling her son's friend, reality star Richard Lehmkuhl. When rumors popped up that the two were in a relationship, he was forced to come out to her and then days later on the cover of People magazine.

Removing a Google link to embarrassing material can be an almost insurmountable task. Google will remove content if it contains personal information such as Social Security numbers or credit card numbers, but it can take days or even weeks to investigate each case and remove the offending item. The only other course of action is to ask that the content be removed from each individual site that contains it.

"This is to protect the integrity of the Web, preventing people from capriciously pulling content lawfully posted by others, " says a Google spokesman.

Jerry Portwood, a former Atlantan who's now managing editor of New York Press, recalls a phone call he received from a former intern who had written a personal essay about his mother convincing him to reconsider a surgical procedure he'd planned to have. It was titled "How mom saved my manhood."

"He called begging me to take it down, " says Portwood. "He was trying to get a corporate job and every time an employer Googled him, that was the first thing that popped up. I told him that it was a good piece and also that it's part of our archive." The story stayed. Portwood says he's gotten at least six similar calls --- from both writers and subjects of stories --- over the last year.

Let this be a lesson: Nothing electronic is totally private, not even personal e-mail, the source of Page's public shaming. Page added to the maelstrom by posting responses and comments on gawker.com and his personal Web site, maintaining that the message was private and intended for one person only. He requested Gawker remove the e-mail from its site, adding, "I really don't want to get my legal team involved." Gawker refused.

One attorney thinks Page may have been wronged.

"E-mail can be protected by copyright law just as an article, book or work of art is protected, " says Atlanta attorney Doug Isenberg, of the GigaLaw Firm, who's been practicing Internet and technology law for more than a decade. He likens Page's situation to a 1987 copyright infringement case won by author J.D. Salinger against Random House, which had planned to publish lengthy quotes from letters the author had written. According to the ruling, quoting a few lines of a letter may be permissible, but publishing long passages or complete letters is not.

So does Page have a case? "At this point, proving damages would be difficult, " Isenberg says. "Really you can't put the genie back into the bottle. Right now it's out there in so many place that it wouldn't be worth it."

Page is left with only two courses of action, said Gould at Gawker. "It's scary that it's out there for perpetuity, but put it into perspective: It's not easy to erase, but you can always do something bigger. And at the very least, the pace of the Internet turns over quickly.

"Just remember you're not the center of the universe."

WHAT WILL GOOGLE REMOVE?

Content containing personal information such as ...

> Social Security or government ID numbers

> Bank account or credit card numbers

> An image of a person's signature

> Explicit content that violates Google's guidelines, which could include pages that install viruses, contain hidden text and other manipulative and deceptive practices.

Author:
Graphic Info:
ID: 0007403974
Type: Graphic
Name: 0007403974FinalGoogle102507
Date: 11/05/2007
Page: C1
Edition: Main
Pub: AJC
Caption: JEMAL R. BRINSON / Staff
Illustration features a man imprisoned and on display in an electronic device with a Google logo.

Culture and Colors

This is why we're gone to Stockholm, or at least why I tagged along. Anthony had a meeting and we wanted a weekend away, but overall, I was in desperate need of some...




This is why you fly from Stavanger to Stockholm.



And yep, it's ultra sunny there, too.




This is our view from the hotel room. No, it's not fabulous, but look closely and see what I've noticed...



Ocassionally with the winter darkness and the rain and the cold, Scandinavia can seem a bit dreary.

But if you pay attention you'll see shots of color, almost as if there are so many subtle reminders that all is not bleak. Just because we have weather and a sharp angle of the Earth, that is not us...

Buildings are colorful, even if they are sometimes a bit faded. Trains are blue and red. In the crowds of people you'll see the requisite black and grey city fashion, but often with a shot of bright, a red scarf, an orange bag or sunny yellow raincoat.

And in traffic, idling with the neutral sedans and hatchbacks are sprinklings of shiny red cars.

King Egg

Europeans love their egg cups.

We found a whole set of blue ones here in our house.

Egg cups are on the buffets of hotels around the continent.

I asked my Norwegian teacher, Janice Soprano, about them and she went on and on about their necessity.

There is even an entire club of people who like egg cups so much that they get together to talk about them when there are no boiled eggs in them.

I just can't get behind it.

I understand that the stated reason for egg cups is to keep soft boiled eggs from running all over your plate.

I just don't buy it.

First of all, who actually knows how to make a soft boiled egg. I suspect I am not the only one who boils eggs and that's it. While I cannot be sure exactly how they'll end up, I can always be certain that they will be boiled. So making a boiled egg and popping it into a holder is just a little too optimistic and pretentious for me.

And really, knowing boiled eggs as I do, I wonder if they even feel comfortable in the spotlight. Maybe it's because I grew up in the generation of ads touting "The incrediable, edible egg." Really, what did the boiled egg do to deserve its own little throne? I wonder if it's not just a little embarrassed.

If I were going to put any egg in a throne, it would probably be the poached egg or maybe Eggs Benedict. I'd give the fried egg a Laz-y-Boy and the raw egg a cradle.

Boiled eggs are just too friendly and egg-of-the-people to be the one for a throne.



Yes, this is our Sunday morning breakfast. Yes, it is possible to count containers and logos. (Normally, I hate that, at least on my own table.) But it was the day after a dinner party. We were tired and yes, that is not the dinner table, it is the living room coffee table. But our guests were gone and there was no one to see. Also, we didn't have any guests, unless you count the little scavenger underneath the table. Also, those are my toes.


And make no mistake, I love boiled eggs.

The day after Husband and I got back from our honeymoon, we went back to Big D's house in Gainesville. And just for kicks, I put back on my wedding dress* before breakfast. Then perused through the refridgerator. After contemplating the myriad of choices, My sister, who was also there, and I boiled eight eggs and we ate them all, with the exception of one, and that was only because Husband asked nicely.

Boiled eggs are good stuff.

Occasionally in bars, especially French bisto sorts of bars, there will be piles of boiled eggs. I guess it's to cut the taste of the alcohol or just to have some good munchies while boozing.

Boiled eggs are also the first step in making deviled eggs, which are Southern picnic food or Kathleen's cook-out speciality.

Also, for such a friendly food, it's just a slightly gruesome way to be eaten. The egg gets put in a special seat, then its top is lopped off and its insides are scooped out. It just doesn't seem nice. Sorry egg.



(I just can't get the hang of the whole lop-off-the-top. I tried. If it were alive, PETA would be marching outside and someone would be screaming "Put it out of its misery.")



(I can use the egg cup as a shell holder, though.)


Husband has no problem with the egg cup. He's got mad egg cup skillz.





*(I thought it was so pretty and you only get to wear it for a few short hours. Also, it just works out better for the whole cost-per-wearing equation. Really, there is a fair chance I would be wearing it right now if I weren't vacuum packed in a special bag hanging in the back of my mother's guest room closet in Gainesvegas. Seriously.)

Once a Year

I don't believe in knick-knacks.

And by "believe in," I do not mean to suggest that I question that knick-knacks exist. I do not even mean to suggest that I do not support other people's right to buy them and enjoy them as they choose.

I only mean to say I just don't believe in their place in our house. I am certain that does not exist.

So when we travel, we do not buy engraved shot glasses or postcards we will not mail. Or even things that we will look at more than a few weeks every year.

We buy ornaments.

From every trip Husband and I have every been on, well before we planned to get hitched, we've gotten an ornament from every place we've visited.

Packed away in a box, in our storage room, are all of them. There is a lobster from Boston, a lovely metallic fish from the North Georgia mountains and a Celtic cross from Scotland. I'd bring out every one to show, but the placement is precarious, so you'll just have to trust me on this one.

I love that once a year, we will bring them all out. There will always be one we've forgotten and best of all, most, along with the actual story of the place, has a story from the actual purchase.

This is our ornament from Stockholm.

Now You Are As Smart As a Fifth Grader

While I like to tell where we've been, I also like to tell you where we are.

And recently, Husband and I worked on a Flat Matt project for our nephew Matt, who is in elementary school in California.

Flat Matt is an adaptation of a project called Flat Stanley, which begins with a somewhat sad and gruesome story.

Stanley was a little boy in elementary school whose parents were poor and couldn't send him to visit a friend. Stanley was disappointed but luckily for him (depending on how you look at it, I suppose) there was an accident in his classroom.

A chalkboard fell down on him and squashed him flat. But, as gruesome as the incident was, it also allowed his parents to laminate him, stuff him into an envelope and mail him off to Stanley's friend.

So though he was now flat, Stanley could visit his friend.

So now, elementary students from all over, smash themselves flat and mail them off to their friends and relatives in distant lands. The recipients take the flat versions of their young friend around their own town, take photos and assemble a project and mail it back.

Then the living, breathing, un-smashed versions have geography lessons from around the country and the world.

So this is what we sent back to California last week.

The version Matt and his classmates got was a booklet, so you'll just have to do with it in blog-form (and with a few details removed.)

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Flat Matt Goes to Scandinavia
Hanging with Uncle and Aunt Elizabeth
Stavanger, Norway

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Norway is the northernmost country in Europe, part of a group of four countries called Scandinavia*

Norway is not a very big country, but it is a long one. (If you took the tip and swung it around, you’d end up in Rome. Italy.)

Only about four million people live in the entire country.

About 118,000 people live in Stavanger. That is pretty close to the population of Flat_Matt's_town, but Stavanger is much farther north resting on about the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska.

(*The other three are Denmark, Sweden and Finland.)

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Almost 10 days after the giant yellow envelope was posted from Flat_Matt's_town, it arrived in the Durel’s mailbox.

Because it had traveled more than 5,000 miles, it must be important. So Aunt Elizabeth took it around the corner and across the harbor, so it could be opened immediately by Uncle.


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Uncle works for a big company. They have offices all over the world.

This is his desk in his office building. His business believes that everyone should work in the same room so they can collaborate and get things done.

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The heart of Stavanger is the harbor. Years ago, Stavanger’s main industry was the ocean, but over the past few decades is know for the oil in the region. Its newest nickname is The Petroleum Capital.

The Harbor is often packed with ships of every size. Small rowboats and giant oil tankers are moored alongside each other almost every day.

Behind Uncle and Flat Matt is the view from Uncle’s office front door.

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Often when people think of Norway, they think of snow and cold, which is true of some parts of the country.

But because Stavanger is located on the southwest coast, the average temperature is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and it rains about 220 days during the year.

Stavanger is so far north on the globe that during the winter, there are long dark days. In the summer, though, it is exactly opposite. There are long light days.

Because sunny days are so rare, when the sun is out, the people go out as well. So after work, Uncle took Flat Matt for a burger and a soda.

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The coastline of Norway looks jagged and torn. That’s because years and years ago, giant glaciers dug into the land, forming fjords (pronounced “feee-yords” in Norwegian).

So now, sometimes people use ferries to travel from town, so they do not have to drive all around the jagged countryside.
Behind Aunt Elizabeth* and Cousin Milo, you’ll see an oil truck driving into the front of a ferry on its way to Tau.

*Uncle had to go to work, so Aunt Elizabeth, who is a writer with schedule which is more loose, is helping out.

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A few days ago, Norway took the #2 spot on Save the Children’s list of best places to be a mom. (Sweden, one of the other Scandinavian countries, was #1.) Maybe one of the reasons is because moms can choose between so many statues when their kids want to climb and play.

These are two of the statues that seem to be about fairy tales.

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This is one of the statues which are all over town.

But look even more closely at the photo and you’ll notice the old cobblestone streets.

The cobblestones were laid down in the 18th and 19th centuries and now are only for pedestrians to walk on, not cars (unless the cars have taken a wrong turn.)

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Oddly enough, along with the fishing and the oil industry, the hair industry is very big here as well. (Frisør means “hairdresser”)

On almost every single block, there is a place to get your hair dyed or cut or blown out.

Frankly, Aunt Elizabeth is mystified as to how so many stay in business in a town this size, especially when it is so expensive to have the services done.

(Where is Flat Matt? Look closely and you may be able to spot him.)

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This is the Norwegian flag.

Because Norway is a fairly new country, the flag’s design is reminiscent of the other Scandinavian countries.

Norwegians are very patriotic and fly their flag at any time.

May 17th is their independence day, similar to the US 4th of July. It’s a very very big deal. People dress up in the national costume and march in parades.

There are also firm and serious rules about how to handle the flag. It must be folded a certain way and cannot be worn below the waist.

It can, though, be worn on the head.

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Norway is also known for its sweaters.

It can get cold and damp and sheep live here.

So Norwegians made very warm wool sweaters.

Originally sweaters were only black and white because those are sheep colors.

Sometimes fancy ones come in red.

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Trolls play a big role in Norwegian literature and folktales.

Occasionally they are kind, but mostly they are rotten and sometimes they live under bridges.

Often they have big noses and ears.

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Norway also has antelopes.

Not only do they make tasty steaks, but also warm headbands.

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Norwegians believe everyone living in the country should be equal.

This is at the harbor in the middle of town.

Look closely at the steps. Do you see the smaller ones?

When it was time to redo the steps several years ago, the designers thought about all the creatures that may need the steps. The smallest ones are for the ducks.

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Look at the giant statue next to Flat Matt. What do you think it is?

Many years ago, before they found out, Stavanger was a shipping and fishing town.

That giant statue is a silver shrimp.

Then look next to it, at the corner of the harbor. You’ll see just a bit of a house that looks like it has a metal triangle on top.

That is a fishmarket where townspeople buy loads of fresh shrimp that has just come off the ships.

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We spent most of the day lounging around the harbor on the sunny day.

The house behind Flat Matt are hundred of years old.

Now those buildings are restaurants and shops.

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Norway is very ecologically aware. There are separate waste containers for paper, plastic and general trash.

In many grocery stores, there are recycling machines.

Flat Matt is helping to recycle by feeding the bottles into the round opening. Once he’s finished feeding in all the bottles, he pushes the green button.

A slip of paper will come out of the slot, which is kind of like a coupon.

When he’s completed his grocery shopping, he can present the slip of paper to the check-out person who will subtract the amount of money on the slip from the total bill.

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When Uncle was done with work, Aunt Elizabeth and Flat Matt went to meet him.

They walked home, past the Stavanger Cathedral (this is the back door) which is the oldest cathedral in Norway.

It’s been around for more than 900 years.

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And then Flat Matt ended up, right where he began…

At Uncle and Aunt Elizabeth’s house.

Come back again, soon!

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(thanks Erin for taking some of the photos!)