Friday, June 21, 2013

NBA Finals 2013 and Maintaining one's American-ness Abroad

After living abroad for a year and a half (give or take a few months), the one thing that an ex-pat starts to feel is a disconnect with their homeland.

I'm not saying it's an absolute truth, it's just something that I've learned.

There are a few times I will do an overwhelmingly American thing (eat a greasy burger with my hands, drink a beer in public with no shirt on, impose my will on a small country... I kid) just as a reminder to myself that "hey, idiot!  You're an American!"

I say all of that to say that, last night, I stayed up until 6am to watch Game 7 of the NBA Finals (The championship for those of you who don't know).

While I'm not particularly a NBA fan (I have no favorite team and have only been to a half dozen actual, pro games), it felt like something that was important.  It was only the fifth time the title-deciding series had gone to the last game.  Plus, the world's best player (Lebron James) was battling against the player that most embodied stoicism and old-school efficiency (Tim Duncan).

The only hang-up was that the game started at 9:00pm east coast time, which made it 3:00 am Norway time.

That's a lot of lines between the East Coast and Central Europe
To prepare for the evening, I did what any good American would do.  I loaded up on caffeine drinks and alcohol just like the last time I decided to watch an American, sporting event after hours.

The hardest thing isn't the actual staying up (you just don't go to sleep), but the hours preceding the event.  What do you do?  I watched a movie (an ill-fated choice as I watched the incredibly underwhelming Seeking A Friend For the End of the World), I tried to watch that Bill Maher show (but that's sorta hard after he got sonn'd by Wayne Brady)...  Afterwards, I just watched Russell Brand do Russell Brand-y things and Amy Schumer be awkward.

Tangent.  Sorry.  Re-directing.  Re-directing

Anyway, soon, it was game time.  I was double fisting and had my browser tuned to NBA UK and my twitter feed primed in another window.  


The game didn't disappoint.

Both teams battled fiercely, though, not always making for the prettiest basketball, but it was a memorable game.  I was only off by 2 points as the Heat won back-to-back titles.

However, it wasn't just the game that made the whole evening worthwhile.  The lack of sleep and energy drink induced rapid heart rate was vindicated by the feeling I got reading tweets and refreshing my Facebook newsfeed and seeing all my countrymen's comments.  We were all sharing in a collective experience at the same exact time.

We were connected.

The distance between here and where I grew up is a little over 6000 kilometers, but it felt like I transcended it for a few hours in the early, Scandinavian morning.

ALT FOR NORGE




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Friday, June 14, 2013

Oslo Street Food Fest and IKEA (not in that order)

I was trying to get back on my regular schedule, but I spent yesterday assembling IKEA furniture.

Thankfully, it went better than this
Maybe its the close proximity to its place of origin, but I found putting together the furnishings easier than I previous had with other IKEA purchases.

Procuring the items were another matter altogether.

The IKEA we went to was in the neighboring town of Bærum.  The 20 km were traversed by a free, express, hourly shuttle from downtown Oslo.  We embarked and IKEA'd are brains out (Rather my girlfriend fiancé did as I have little no opinion on duvets and dining room table chairs) and, when we were ready to leave, found we had a little problem.

How would we get all of our stuff home?  (I won't say "furniture" because, as you know with IKEA, it was a pile of flimsy wood and bags of nuts and bolts)

The first option was to have them deliver it.  That wasn't tenable as our spending had pushed us into a higher delivery cost (Because, whenever you can incentivize people to purchase less, you always do it... Consumerism works differently here than back in the US).  Thus, we had to go with renting a car which was cheaper and went well (except for having to return the car and wait 40 minutes for the next bus to take us home... that sucked).

All in all, a good IKEA day.  I even got Meatballs!  Happy 50th birthday, IKEA - Slependen!!

Speaking of food...

The one thing I am critical about here in Norway is the food (not the homemade food... All of that has been awesome!).  You don't have to scan back over past blog posts, but yeah, I talk about it... A lot.

However, I must give it up to Oslo (well, the Mathallen) for their amazing Street Food fest.

There were between 20-30 vendors (it was a rainy day and a lot of the booth were not prepared for the downpour so there was a lot of combinations) and all types of amazing food (well, except for Norwegian Kimchi... Not Yet!).  I settled on trying various seared lamb and moose ribs (free sample, so it was like a spoonful and 1/3 a rib so I didn't get enough to make a firm conclusion on either, but I will say that seasoning is not a key feature of cuisine here) and reindeer kabob (oh have mercy, percy was it good!  I take back the "seasoning" snide remark I just made).  However, the standouts were the french dip sandwich made by an actual Frenchman (alas, the meal was created in California, but, by a Frenchmen...  That counts, right?).  How good was it?  It made me question whether or not I had ever ate a real French Dip before as nothing I'd ever tasted was remotely as good.

Then, came the two burgers...

Døgnvil (the long-standing, Oslo's #2 burger spot) offered two sliders that were mind-numbing... One was called The Dutch and it featured pickled onion, gouda cheese, and their special, burger sauce that made me sit down (which was problematic as the ground was wet... I had to walk around with wet pants afterwards).  Their other concoction was called BCN and it had grilled Chorizo, Smoked Gruyère, and herb mayo.  I began eating it and felt my insides melt.  However, about halfway through, I detected a salty element and wondered if there was some hidden ingredient I had missed.  It took me a couple seconds to realize that it was just the taste of my own tears.  It was that good.

Alt for Norge


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Monday, June 3, 2013

Surviving Oslo Musicfest 2013

I'm no longer young and cool (or, rather, I no longer have the illusion of being young and cool... if ever I had been the latter is debatable).



I'd been aware of this fact for some time, but a three-hour whirlwind through the crowds and music of the 2013 Oslo Musicfest (Oslomusikkfest) confirmed this truth.

I thought of writing a running diary for the proceedings, but that seemed silly considering the fact that my experience was only 180 minutes of a possible 12 hours and a decent portion of what little time I did commit was spent walking between venues.

So, in lieu of a blow-by-blow, here are a sampling of the highlights (Please keep in mind that I only visited 7 of the 20 venues and only saw 8 bands):

Best Setting I visited.  The Kristparken venue was epic.  The park itself is little more than a huge courtyard between a kindergarten, Church of Sweden's Norwegian headquarters, and the Norwegian Dental headquarters.  There are numerous trees and wide alleyways leading in, so there was a cool breeze and dabs of sunny spots.  It was packed and it was a festive crowd (i.e. there was a lot of marijuana being smoked).  It most embodied the idea of a music festival (at least, as I have known them).  Unfortunately, they had a less than ideal vendor situation (the lines spanned the width of the courtyard) and the sound was distorted.  Which did no favors for the sounds of Man the Machetes and Blood Command.

Most Enjoyable Venue I visited.  Strangely, the Vulkan Scene provided the best combination of space and sound.  There were more tables and chairs brought in for sitting, as well as beer being sold from multiple spots to avoid long lines (50 kroner/$8.33 for 33 cl beers, that's an ounce less of a standard, American beer can).  The stage was set-up at the bottom of the stairs, providing good acoustics.  The wide walkways could've accomodated 500 people (it was about 1/7th that number in attendance). 

Worst Venue I visited.  While it had one of the better programs, Cafe Sør was unbearable.  There was approximately 290452834982734 people squeezed into an indoor and outdoor area meant for about 75.  However, the sound was exquisite (which makes sense as it was one of the few places that actually hosted music on a semi-regular basis).  A shame because I would've loved to have stayed through EMILY's whole set, but I just couldn't...  People-induced claustrophobia is a real thing, I think...

Most bizarre question I was asked.  Can me and my wife have your mulatt babies?  (I'm paraphrasing and this ended my first stint at Kristparken)

The one scene that is impossible to describe but I will try anyway.  There are few places that combine the unintentional comedy of people trying to look tough in bright colored clothing and oblivious, drunk white girl dancing (Oh my God!  Is that racists!?!?!?  I didn't mean for it to be, like, racists!!) better than Turkish Delight.  Though, this all pales in comparison to the awkward, reggaeton stylings of Son of Light!

Best Band.  I guess the perfect combination of space, sound, and charm of Vulkan was aided by the fact that the perfect band was playing, DUDES.  Now, please don't take this to mean that I think the band, itself, is perfect (or even very good), but, as so often happens in life, the combination of their energy, the setting, and the crowd's reaction (somewhere between riotous and perplexed excitement) just made the set unimpeachable.  What were they saying?  I don't know.  But they meant it!  Also, the drummer looks like Micheal Cera and their base guitarist looked and dressed just like the Don Dawson character in Dazed and Confused.

Why Did I Lead into this post with melancholic musings on youth lost?  Well, the following four reasons... 1) Because I didn't understand any of the clothing the trendy concert goers were wearing (I saw an assortment of "NOFX" and other mid-90s screamo bands.  I couldn't tell if people had these on to be ironic or to chalk it up to their Norwegianness... I feel like, with most things, the answer lies somewhere in-between);  2) I didn't understand the appeal of most of the bands (granted, when you're playing a free event, you tend to not have Kanye West or Counting Crows show up); 3) I just referenced Counting Crows like they released a relevant album in the past decade; and 4) I was pretty done after three hours.  There was still more to see, but I wasn't up for it.   

That's pretty much all I have.  Youngstorget was a complete and utter debacle of people (there was at least 300-500 people milling in-between a logjam of two stages with music that ran over each other and a dozen vendor stands selling everything from Eastern scarves to cowboy hats) and Revolver was nondescript (there's only so many ways to describe loud rock).

ALT FOR NORGE



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