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@alexandraineurope
“The south is a land of unfinished works because finished works don’t pay.”
…and to look out on the sea from Gioia Tauro, a port city built on an ancient Greek necropolis where the boxlike tombs in the cemetery are better kept than some nearby houses.
Few Calabrians have much confidence in their leaders, or that the highway will ever be finished.
walking through Paris
everywhere in Paris you see this "regarde le ciel." this interpretation you don't see much of.
All that is mine I carry with me
can't for the life of me find what this was the title to, or even who it was. some small piece of art, or actually i think it was used in a piece of art, a small sketch in ink
I was on a ship with my father once, for an hour from Staten Island. He had gone across the Atlantic and had just gotten back. I asked him how the trip was and he shrugged and said fine, nothing happened. I was there for an hour, and the logbook was in his office so I read through it. On the trip a man had gotten sick and died, they had to bury him at sea in the middle of the ocean. And that was "fine, nothing happened" to my father.
Clyfford Still - Jamais
"there's no such thing as the mafia"
Mom: This town is known for having all the mafia.
Nonna: Your uncle's uncle was a priest. He used to marry the mafioso.
We didn't have money but we had a lot of time.
Ayelet, about traveling with Erez when they first got married
He had a lot of stories and he never told them.
my dad, on my grandfather
It's so funny you mention The Subtle Knife, because I'm re-reading The Golden Compass right now. Were armored bears/the North in TSK? I remember that more from the first one. I just remember that very long poem in the second that the witches used to try to help Will. And Citagazze. That city was awesome.
you're right - most of the action in the North happens in TGC, but the histories of explorations to the North with Will's dad and stuff happens in TSK. I loveeee that series, I seriously have to re-read it :) and Cittagazze is literally the coolest (/creepiest) (/cats..)
day 63: end in sight
Woke up in Oslo, had breakfast. Decided to go see some museumssssss.
Drove out to this little peninsula where the big museums are. Parked by the folk museum but walked first to the Fram Polar Ship Museum on the water. IT WAS AWESOME. It's the big ship, the Fram, which Norwegian explorers took on the expedition to the South Pole. They also took it / had exhibitions about North Pole explorations. We climbed all over the ship and sat to watch the "video" which was like a 60 second giant screen thing of the aurora borealis, and went in a silly immersive tunnel where it was freezing and terrifying [frozen mummies, attacking polar bears]. So basically it was The Subtle Knife and I loved it to death.
After that we walked next door to the Kon-Tiki Museum. This houses the Kon-Tiki papyrus ship from 1970 and another ship from like 1950. The other ship had gone on explorations to Polynesia. Two summers ago, my family and I (minus Erin) went to the Cook Islands for a few weeks, so it was really fun to see how Polynesia was represented in this museum. And by that I mean we were surprised they made it through the whole museum without once using the term "cannibalism."
Next we decided to forego the Viking Ship Museum and go to the Folk Museum, on my mother's angry demands. The families split up and we marched to the Stave Church. This museum is really just a giant park filled with period buildings from the history of Norway. The coolest was definitely the more modern stuff [a town hall redecorated as a house in the 50s-70s.] We saw some dancing. Then we left.
Got back in the car and drove back to our hotel. Went directly to the National Gallery which is near our hotel. This is when things got really crazy. Everyone was in a bad mood because my mother had been acting nasty so we were standing in the Munch room looking at The Scream when one by one all 5 of us stormed off in a huff in different directions. Slowly we met up again [while I found my sisters, my dad found my mom, eventually we all found each other] and ended up back in the Munch room. I quite like his Madonna. We ran into the Israeli family at one point, too. Eventually we decided to leave. Really, though, we've reached our collective limit on family vacation time. Time to go home.
Back to the hotel, prep for dinner. Met in lobby at 7:30 and walked out to the lovely harbor. Went to eat at an Italian restaurant called Eataly [not like NY's Eataly, though.]. Elizabeth and I gave out "superlatives" since it was our last dinner. We cut out pages from the Norway tour book and gave one to everyone.
(words in bold are words from the book)
Mom: The "I'm Not Leaving Until I See a Stave Church" Award
Dad: The Didn't See A Moose Award
Erez: The Getting There Award (whether by driving, hiking, or carrying everyone's bikes up the hills for them)
Ayelet: The Nobel Peace Prize
Erin: The Oslo At A Glance Award (for wanting to go home and leave Oslo already)
Ziv: The Facts Award (he knows a lot of facts)
Elizabeth: Most Likely to Give A Detailed Explanation of Valhalla, the Viking Heaven Based On Operas
Leor: The Chocolate Heaven Award (Peppe's Pizza was on the page and was a restaurant where we wanted to try the Chocolate Heaven but didn't get to)
Me: The Part of the Statistic Award (the page was an info box on immigrants in Norway because I've been away from America for so long)
Hila: MVP (she got the cover page for being the best.)
Ate. Played with a candle. Walked along the boardwalk and got some ice cream so everyone was happy. Wandered towards the hotel, stopped at a souvenir shop, got back to the hotel. Said a long, long, bittersweet goodbye to each other as my family is leaving early tomorrow so we won't see them again for probably a long time (hopefully next summer!)
Erin, Elizabeth, and I watched the remaining available episodes of season 2 of Awkward, and now we are going to sleep.
So that's it, then. Waking up early tomorrow and taking a direct flight from Oslo to Newark.
day 62
Woke up, had breakfast. Had to leave our cutesy hotel. Drove out to our final destination: Oslo. Last chance to spot any moose or bears and nope there were none. Well, we didn't go exactly to Oslo. We went to a ski jump outside of Oslo. It's a gigantic ski jump where they host a bunch of competitions and had 2 winter Olympics. It was pretty cool. First we went into a simulator! It simulates 2 ski jumps and a big slalom. The slalom was run by Aksel Lund Svindal, who I'd casually sat next to back at the Oslo Airport. The simulator was supposed to be a fun pleasant thing but, as usual with Norway, it was not what they said it would be. It was frightening and made us all wanna throw up and be thankful that we hadn't eaten before we got there. Still cool, but also kind of awful. I started laughing at one point because it was exactly like everything else in Norway. Like, yes, don't worry, it's a nice pleasant 2 mile hike. JK IT'S 7 MILES UP A ROCK CLIFF. No it's cool, just an easy bike ride. JK GRAVEL ROAD, 45% INCLINE. Fun simulator ride! JK JERKS YOU BACK AND FORTH WITHOUT A SEATBELT! Anyways, you could go up to the top and see the whole city and surrounding area and everything. There was also a little ski museum at the base.
Afterwards we drove a bit down the hill and stopped at a fancy woodsy restaurant with some moose heads. Good food. Erin and Elizabeth had mashed potatoes under veal under bacon under an egg yolk. I had a "steaksandwich" which was yum bread with a steak, sour cream, weird guacamole, like sweet and soury sauce, and arugula. And our kids table ordered like 8 baskets of bread.
Then we drove into the actual city of Oslo to our hotel. Checked in, got to our rooms. Napped for a little then met up and walked around the hip happening area of Oslo or something. Found an Italian restaurant and ate (gnocchi filled with meat topped with gorgonzola cream sauce for me). Back to room, and sleepers.
day 61: Team Lazy
Today we woke up and had breakfast.
[Sidebar: right now Erin is complaining about the heat and it's really fucking annoying.]
At breakfast the dads checked with the horseback riding people and turns out "the horses are on vacation." Like, die. Literally two days ago I said if I couldn't ride a horse on this trip I am JUMPING SHIP.
[Sidebar: right now Erin, Elizabeth, and I are arguing over who the world revolves around. I am a solipsist, so obviously it is me. This is the Truman Show and I am Truman.]
Anyways, apparently the horses left our hotel today for the end of summer. I am angry about this. But the hotel said we could rent bikes for free and ride out to the other hotel on the lake where there are "animals, fishing, and horses." They also said it would be "an easy bike ride." Given our previous experience with "easy hikes," I did not trust this to be "an easy bike ride." So I decided to take the car with my dad and Ayelet while everyone else rode.
My dad let me drive! Except the GPS sent us down a completely unpaved road. Then I ended up driving through tall grass. Then I was on a private farm. So I backed up and then I was in a ditch. Then I put the car in park and unlocked my seatbelt and said "nope." and let my dad drive. We made it back to the main road and I tried to set the GPS to "avoid unpaved roads" but couldn't do that because, oh yeah, the main road that we were on is unpaved, so Jacqueline (the GPS lady) couldn't find a route.
We eventually made it to the other hotel, regardless. There were two cows. There was no fishing. The horses were from a separate horse tour group doing a 7-day trek through the mountains and they were resting so no, we could not ride them. Soon the bikers arrived, jolly and laughing: it was all downhill to get there.
Mom, Elizabeth, and I walked over to the horses and some very nice Norwegians from the tour came over to tell us all about it. Then we decided to leave and go back to our hotel since there was nothing there. Dad, Ayelet, and I were still driving and Leor, the youngest son, decided to join us. His brother Ziv tried to make fun of us and call us lazy but instead we high-fived because Team Lazy is the best team and the smartest team and we win everything [reappropriation]. I drove back to our hotel with Leor's bike hanging out of the open trunk.
Dropped Leor and Ayelet off and then I drove with my dad back down the road to see if we could find any of our group who wanted a ride back to the hotel. We couldn't find them so assumed they had gone up the gravel biking/horseback riding trail. We passed the second hotel and drove out to the lake. Very pretty. Then drove back [I did all this driving.] Like in Italy, I shared the road with some animals: cows and sheep. Still no moose.
Got back to our hotel and wondered if everyone had been eaten by bears since no one was back yet. We walked around the hotel and started up the trail when everyone showed up, exhausted. It was all uphill. Team Lazy wins.
Went to the rooms, napped. Then Erin, Elizabeth, and I went to the pooooooool. Hot tub, pool, water slide all to ourselves. It was super fun. We spent a lot of time in there.
Got ready for dinner and ate with everyone at the hotel. After dinner my family and Erez and Hila (she's 16 and awesome) stopped in at the ballroom. At pretty much every hotel we've been to there's a ballroom where a crappy band plays to an empty room. This time we decided to go on in. Elizabeth, Mom, and I danced to a bunch of fun songs. Swing dancing!
[Sidebar: this resort must seriously be so awesome in the winter when there are actual humans here. It's so cool.]
Went up to our room. Watched 3 episodes of season 2 of Awkward. Now to sleep!
day 60
Today.
Checked out of the hotel and drove out to the lake. Started walking. Was supposed to be an easy 3 mile roundtrip hike. Like most things in Norway, this was false. Walked out to this weird ass creepy ass sculpture garden in the middle of the forest. It was nice though because it had all of these little booths with soundmakers like wind chimes and stones to hit and it was pretty cathartic to make a lot of noise and smash things. Walked further to some very unimpressive Viking funerary mounds. It was funny because we had gone on vacation with this family to China and saw some real giant funerary mounds, so to see this was like "...k."
Then we kept walking. Reached a 200+ year old bridge over some rapids. Then I asked why we weren't turning around and everyone insisted it was a loop. We took the wrong trail. Had to go back to the bridge. Instead of taking my advice to just go back on the path we came on, the parents decided we would take the "short cut" through the goddamn motherfucking forest. It was dirty, there was no path, it was not a short cut, there were goddamn motherfucking bugs. I was extremely upset. Once we hit a regular path I speed walked to the front of the group. Ziv, who is in 9th grade and thinks boys are naturally better than girls, jogged up and was all "I'm beating you!" so I jogged with him and then he got a step ahead and started cackling so I pushed into second gear and started running and blew him away. FEMINISM. Then I just kept jogging because fuck you forest I want to get back to my goddamn car. Another casual 7+ mile hike.
Once everyone got to the cars we drove to a pizza place for lunch. Then we went to a "museum" which was a bunch of old viking houses or something. Elizabeth, Erin, and I played a game where we named different types of museums [i.e. Museum of Small Talk, Museum of Non-Circular Wheels, etc.]. Sat on a rock. Ate a local specialty [basically a crunchy crepe with sugar].
Got back in the car to drive to where we are now, Gol. It's literally in the middle of nowhere. Literally. It's a ski lodge so obviously now it's very empty but there are all of these crazy amenities like arcade games and bowling alleys and pools and saunas and hot tubs. We decided to check out the pool. Erez is a highly trained swimmer [he was training to swim the English Channel before the doctor discovered he had some sort of problem and had to stop training] so he coached Erin and Elizabeth to swim better. It was cool to watch.
Then there was a massive WATER SLIDE. Actually huge though, like waterpark-sized. It wound in circles through like two floors of the hotel. We figured out how to turn it on and then we had it ALL TO OURSELVES WITHOUT SUPERVISION. Me, Erin, Elizabeth, Ziv, Leor, Erez, and even my parents ran up the stairs and went down it like a million times screaming and playing and changing the water levels and it was honestly childhood dream come true.
Went back up to the room to prepare for dinner. Decided to wear dresses. Ate in the hotel. Sat in the lobby and talked for a bit, then up to the room and here we are.
day 59
Woke up, had breakfast. Drove. Took a ferry. Ate at a giant waterfall. Arrived in Ustedalen. Erin, Elizabeth, and I sat in our hotel room and watched half of the first season of MTV's Awkward. Then we had smorgasbourg dinner at the hotel. Walked a little in the town, touched some horses. Then we went back to our hotel room and watched the second half of the first season of MTV's Awkward.
Big day.
day 58: Bergen
Woke up, had breakfast. For the morning the families decided to split up. Erez and his family went to the science museum and we went on a tour of the historical area of Bergen, Bryggen. The tour guide made it a point that Bergen and Bryggen are different, ok? It was cute and old. Norway has a thing about fires. And by that I mean every town in every district of Norway has burned down eight thousand times in history. Including Bryggen.
For lunch we decided to go to the fish market. I got a Subway sandwich though. Obv. The guys we got our fish from were hilarious. And thus obviously not Norwegian. Sicilian and Portuguese. The two of them were basically a comedy duo, it was so fun. My mom and the Sicilian bonded and he came over and chatted and brought us free gambarie. We gave him an email address in case he comes to New York.
After lunch we walked all the way out to the aquarium on the other side of town. Saw a seal show. Touched some fish. The other family joined us there. Got ice cream. Elizabeth and I got attacked by a crocodile. Legit. It jumped at us. Luckily there was a glass barrier.
Walked all the way back across town to our hotel. Went out to dinner. Walked around town a little, then Olympics closing ceremony (SPICE GIRLS), then sleep.
"There's not such thing as bad weather - just inappropriate clothing."
Norwegian saying
