Wednesday, September 26, 2012

An Autumn Walkabout

I'm back to full health which means I'm back to doing "Norwegian-ly" things.  Or at least trying to...

And so it goes...

Last thursday, in celebration of the beginning of Fall (Summer hath all too short a lease...), I went out to a traditional, Norwegian celebration for the Autumn Equinox (you know, when it starts getting dark earlier).  While, Mabon is more of a Celtic celebration, there are many similar traditions held throughout Scandinavia.  And that is how I found myself on the Akerselva Walk (elva means river so it literally means Aker's river in English... thanks for playing along).  What exactly happens on the Akerselva walk (ok... it's actually called "Fakkelvandring langs Akerselva", Flame walk along Akers River)?  

Fire.  A lot of Fire.




And children kicking hats off of sticks



I realize, out of context, these poorly taken pictures may seem bizarre.  Please, keep up.  We all know that the harnessing of electricity is a fairly, short lived phenomenon and, as such, before its advent, fire was of great importance.  Even so in the frigid north here(I've been making "Game of Thrones" jokes about being "North of the wall" for some time now).  I imagine all the fire (there was also a fire eater I failed to capture) is just a way to pay homage to the giver (and taker) of life.

As for the kids kicking hats off of sticks, I imagine it must've been pretty boring before the advent of TV and Draw Something.  I'm kidding, here's the real reason.  So yeah, it was a lot of fun, there were also a lot of different musical groups and some really awesome torch, lights, and candle set-ups in and along the river.  

So yeah... it was fun, but I prefer my American, Autumn traditions, instead... Go O's! Go Ravens!

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Alt for Norge




Thursday, September 20, 2012

tilbakken

So yeah... you're probably like "wait... didn't there use to be awesome blog entries on this page like twice a month?" (well, a boy can dream...).  You're right.  I took a break.  Like from Norway.  I was in exile in America (details aren't really all that interesting or uncommon), but now I'm back.

Were they happy to see me?


You could say so...

In any case, I thought I'd shape my first return entry with what I did in America.  However, I figured that would be antithetical of what this blog should be about (really, it wasn't that much fun), I started writing this to detail about how I found the moods of Norway.  So, I returned earlier this week and, like the two times before, I immediately became sick.

Not like, sick sick, but sick enough that my stomach felt like Prince Harry was throwing a party inside it.  Before, I had chalked it up to excitement (my first time!!) or stopping over in Iceland, but this time there was no direct cause (of course I was excited, stay with me here).  I decided to start looking in to a red thread... a similarity between each of the trips.  Finally, after ruling out the insane (global conspiracy to force me to stay in America where I will become a manchurian candidate and bring about world war 3) and the plausible (air pollution withdrawal), I figured it either came down to my girlfriend making me sick (I'm allergic to adorableness!) or the one thing I'd had each time. Water.  That's right, in an ironic twist, the most essential thing I needed was making me sick.



A short search confirmed my fears.  Over 22 percent of the water pipes were made between 1941 and 1970s?!?  Imagine how far technology has come sense then!  Would you trust your life to a car made between 1941 and 1970s everyday on your commute to and from work?  This is awful!!  I'm going to need a Brita and to boil the water I bathe myself in.  Or maybe a britta filter to tape to the shower head.

What's this?  A detailed study and it says that the "22% water pipe" thing refers to an estimate done in 2010, and, of those pipes, the majority are secondary piping in rural regions and, subsequently, there have been over 10,000 projects a year to fix the problem.

Oh.

Maybe I am allergic to adorableness after all.

Alt for Norge