Long Bows and Massage Class Yes, that's right, Massage Class.
But first, we spend a week 'researching' something 'that interested us', and I got stuck on the group doing long bows. Which isn't what I was interested in, and that happened because I wasn't really suppose to want to do some thing that interested me , I think I lost something in the translation. But it turned out to be kinda fun anyway.
After some 'research' on the web we found some sites that described in pretty good detail how to make one of these things. That was good. Searching for the wood to use, for you cannot use just any tree, was less good. Only half of the wood has arrived by now, and it's nearly 2 weeks after we started hunting. So, we don't have any built yet. But there is enough interest in it, I'm sure it'll get done before spring arrives, and seeing a homemade bow in action is something I'm looking forward to.
The massage class wasn't so exciting. I was feeling a bit under the weather for this week, and I didn't really show up to the whole class, but from what I did see it wasn't quite my cup of tea. I was after, I think, sports massage. Where you work out cramps, and stretch things and generally tenderize the body. The class was more Eastern healing. Rub this center of energy, stroke this way to move it, then go over here and press on the forehead type stuff. Not the Here's How To Get a Stiff Hamstring Working Again. Not really practical for me. Oh well. I can't complain too much, the days I did make it to class were good. Half the time I was on the table.

Karin Leaves! Karin has decided to apply to Law School. This has several implications beyond me marrying well, such as her leaving this weekend.
The figuring that got her to getting out of here was something like this: law school applications are due be March, and part of that is the LSAT, and that needs a few months to study, and that is offered in February. So, off to study she has gone, heading up to her grandmothers way up north. So far up north it's already gone black, the sun has risen for the last time until spring. I hear it's not totally black, but a sunless noon sounds a bit evil to me.
So, we took off to Trondheim on Friday, to hang out, do some shopping, get some hot-chocolate and then put her on the bus that goes to the airport on Monday afternoon. We had a grand time this weekend. It was spent at Guri's and Tore's house, relatives of Karin, in front of the TV. They have cable. We logged 8 hours on Friday. Something similar on Sunday. Good stuff.
And Refried Beans! We went shopping to get dinner parts for Friday, and I found my beans! I was so excited, I have not had a bean and cheese burrito in a quarter of a year, which is rather traumatic after eating like 5 a week for the past few years. I had planned on taking the 3 cans back to school to use in an emergency, but when Karin saw them they became dinner. I had underestimated her dependence on this substance. We ate 2 of them, along with Jalapeno peppers, and this 'HOT' salsa that had a nice mellow flavor. Oh man that was good.
In'n Out! I found an In'n Out substitute! Not that my existence revolves around food, but it was a weekend full of exciting culinary discoveries. This one burger place, O'Martins, I think, serves lots of stuff from pasta to salad to burgers. And their burgers have a sauce similar to that pink goo In'n Out slathers on their burgers. If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear the potato chopper in the background... And this fast food dining experience set back a cool 175 Kroner. For both of us, that was about 25 American Green Backs.
I tried to do some shopping while in town, and traffic was brutal. Not so much the cars, that was OK because we had our own spot at the hospital where Guri works, but people traffic on the streets and in the stores. I waited 30 minutes at an electronics store to ask somebody if they had a cable. I never made it. I may have had another 15 minutes more had I stayed. I couldn't believe it. Fry's has better service then this. Goes to show ya, if you want the things that a lot of people will produce (like a city with stores) you have to put up with the lot of people.
And then, on Monday, Karin got on a bus to the airport. I shall see her again on December 22nd. We got those Christmas calenders with the chocolate behind each day, and are using them to count down the time until I get up there.

Sledding! So, perhaps, just maybe, this winter thing isn't so bad.
Last night is snowed, putting down 2 or 3 inches of powder, covering the world in the white velvet of paintings. The beauty of the white landscape was powerful enough to stop at the window, despite being on the way for lunch. As a side note, I had also just gotten out of bed, the party last night was quite good...the farming group put this one on, and they did some good mocking of the other groups, and the food was also quite good.
Somebody other then me had the wisdom to take advantage of this wintry wonderland and fetched the sleds. And, as luck would have it, we have several hills nearby, one even just outside the front door. It's not huge, but the ease of access gives it points. And, now, after sledding down hills and getting into snow ball fights I can say that maybe, just maybe, this winter thing has something going for it.

Tar This week we tarred the boat. This was not fun.
We also did some wood shop, some rope making and insulating soles making. That last one should be elaborated on. These insulating sole things are to be put into your shoes, kinda like an oder-eater, to keep the cold from sneaking up from the bottom. Not a bad idea. The principle ingredient is cow tail hair that gets mangled up to stay flat and stuff, the mangling process isn't so important here, it's the origin of the hair that we had to deal with today. Somebody needs to make a shirtless cow. These things were covered. Caked. Coated. It was pretty amazing how much shit could cling to a single tail, and we cleaned it out. Sigh. The rope making was much nicer, and actually interesting to see the process.
Back to the boat. It it, as you've seen wooden, and one of the principle motivations of this school is 'it's tradition'. So, we didn't use any newfangled manufactured chemicals to treat our wood. No sir. Just linseed oil and tar. Maybe a bit of paint for color. I had the esteemed job of painting the inside of the boat with this tar linseed mix, and it took me 2 days to do it all. I do have to say it looks much nicer now that it's done, and I now know that I will never own a wooden boat. The ropes, also, in keeping with tradition, are natural fibers and need a good coat of tar to keep them from rotting. This is why 'you don't want expensive clothes on a boat'. I am so glad I shopped at the army surplus store.

Boat Pictures These are from the schools web site, so they aren't anything new or special and you won't see me in them, but they give you a good idea what the heck I've gotten myself into. Click on one for a larger view.

Norway #8 Knife making for the week! Yes, that's right. We took a week to make knives, not a bad deal at all. In the beginning, I thought the process was a little on the canned side, the blades were bought, the wood was already cut, and the cow was killed and skinned. This was in stark contrast to our usual experience at this school of doing the whole process by hand, ourselves. You may have gotten that idea from earlier posts....
After nearly finishing one knife on Monday, I was a bit skeptical how we would fill up a week with this project. And after I finished it completely on Thursday, I had more understanding... :) I did manage to get a few handles carved in addition, but the bulk of the time was spend on the leather sheath, that thing is nasty. I think it consumed a day to cut out and sew together, and a day or so to carve neat thing into it. I manage to get 2 letters. A fellow student managed to get a dragon into hers. I should have hired her to finish mine. Oh well.
The others in the school who were not making knives were in one of 3 other groups: rope making, basket weaving, and ...something else...must not have been very good. It was pretty neat to see all the stuff we managed to actually make by hand. In a few weeks we get to to this course week again, this time massage is on the list! Sometimes this place isn't all that rough.

Norway #7 These two weeks are about as typical and boring as things get around here.
The week after we good back from London wasn't all that full of a week, we got back to the school on Tuesday evening, after a day of shopping in Trondheim. Hey, we were on vacation. Which quickly ended when we got back and started washing up from our London trip, and packing for our 3 day sailing trip that would leave the next day. No time to relax there. Turns out there was too much wind, which means that, if you went outside you'd have blown away. This was the most wind I've seen in one place, so I was glad we didn't go out sailing.
And the snow! In October! WTF is this doing here? I realized something about this snow stuff; I don't like snow anymore. I used to like it, sure. When it was 'over there' and I went to it for special trips filled with exciting and exotic things like skiing and snowball fights. Now it's here. I'm home and it's covered in snow. No sunny shores to go back to when this weekend is over. I don't think I like it. So we were all glad to stay inside for sailing class and talk about wind and boat stuff without freezing out butts off.
We did go out sailing the next day. And the wind was much nicer, but friggin cold. But no rain! That matter so very much on a boat with no cabin, have I mentioned that before? Anyway, the wind was grand and the waves were big as we flew over the peaks. This was the first time we had really sailed in wind strong enough to tip the boat as it pushed us through the water. This new condition resulted in a quick conversation between me and Vegard, that went something like this:

V: 'If the water starts coming in over the side of the boat,
just let go of this rope.'
me: 'water...'
V: 'See how the water is almost over the edge there?
 Letting go of this rope will drop the power out of the sail,
and the boat will right it's self '.
me : 'OK!'

Let me tell you about motivating speeches. My attention didn't waver. And yes, the water was almost over the edge, our front man in the boat was riding the waves out with his feet on the edge of the boat because A) it was tipping that much, and B) his feet were stopping the water that was squirting in through some of the rope holes that were now under water. Good times.
We did some driving around in circles this day also, which began in a weird way; there we were sailing along happily when Vegard tosses out a buoy and some rope, 'Man overboard' he calls. We did manage to pick up the stuff durring this drill, but the moral of the story was 'don't fall overboard'. We took about 10 minutes to get there. Not good. So he tosses out another one, and we turn and tack and stuff and get that back, and he tosses out another. Jokes about tossing out the problem began... but it did make sense when we had 2 targets in the water; we could work on fine boat handling skills without running the boat into rocks. Kinda exciting to weave around these things without hitting them.
The next trip it appeared either Vegard was exceptionally lazy, or his confindence in us is going up. He sat in the bunk reading while we did all the thinking and working to get out of harbor. We did manage, but it was slow and did show us that we have much to learn.
Our last day of the week was spend working in a boat house moving stuff and fixing things. Barrels of salt cod, apparently, had been moved around in the years past, and we had a bunch of rusted wooden barrels that were now old and empty. So we fixed up most of them and moved them to another boat house, and I've learned a few things about barrels. Barrel creation is an amazingly exact science, I have no idea how they managed to do this stuff without computers and CAD Tools. The wooden slats are wider in the middle then the edges, and 14 of these are put in a circle and the ends bent together forming a water tight seal at every junction. Just amazing how tight the tolerances were for these things. The rest of the day was spent at the other boat house cleaning up stuff, including fishing nets that mice had chewed on. Messy. One more reason I don't plan to pursue a career in the fishing industry.
This weekend the teaching staff put on the first Saturday night party ( the students get to put on the rest of the years parties), and it will be hard to top this performance. The dinner was damn good food of salmon sushi like things and tomato fish soup. An on-stage performance followed. The opening skit was the staff sitting on a couch watching TV, trailer trash style. Beat up old couch, hair styled in the 80s, wearing long underwear and smoldering cigarettes dangling form their lips as the smoke rolled off the stage and filled the room. Typical trailer trash humor involving beer cans ensued. I guess trailer trash jokes are an international phenomenon. The rest of the skits were no less funny, but words don't do them justice.
Words don't do justice to the dancing and party after words either, but it's at least worth mentioning. Some folk music was put on and some organized stuff started to happen, kinda like line dancing but with 2 lines that interact with lots of spinning. The steps are easy, and really quite tiring once you get going. Vegard commented that next time he would have the 'right' music so it would go faster. That will be interesting.
Back in the wood shop today, my box is going well and Karin is making bowls on the lathe. She's getting quite good, as several of her attempts have been bad wood, so she is getting much practice.
Worked cleaning a restaurant for a day on this 'work for a day and donate the money to charity' thing that Norwegian schools do. We took about 5 hours to clean most of it, I spent it all in the kitchen fighting grease rivers. This stuff was caked several mm thick and amazingly resistant to the effects of soap. I learned that I shall not own any type of food service establishment. Even it's a quaint little bistro.

London #1 Short Version:
Our Norway journey gave way to a vacation in London that turned out to be quite nice, quite busy, quite tiring. London is huge, and I think we saw most of the important parts in our 12 day trip, and even got some Bath in.
Long Version:
12 days in London. On the first day in London, my Fiancee gave to me, one Partridge in a Pear Tree!
OK, enough singing jokes...
Day 1 : We get to London via Bergen, so it wasn't too bad of a plane trip. It's rather nice to get one hour jet lag when traveling to London. We decided to try and travel light, so we fit everything into our backpacks, something that I now know is an utter necessity if you plan to travel cheep and be on the move alot. Speaking of cheep, we found a room for 30 pounds a night. About 50 bucks. Think Animal House in San Francisco and your getting close to our first impression. The house is set up like SF joints, thin and tall with the narrow hallways filled with college agers milling about smoking and drinking. Our room hadn't been cleaned, but that didn't really stand out. The curtain on the window was a wedged in blanket, the floor was a bit grungy, the bed was small and not exactly quality, and the shower had it's own mop with a sign that said 'Please clean up after yourself'. Different. We slept.
Day 2:The morning came and we set out to be tourists. The first item on our London To-Do list was a red double decker bus ride. We rode that bus for about an hour, mostly 'cause we got on going the wrong way, but eventually we ended up at Hyde Park and we walked our way to Buckingham Palace. Beautiful walk. Buckingham palace is a bit ridiculous, with those guys in red strutting around. A few people came and went from the palace and the guards didn't even look their way. Some other guards took care of that. Seem odd to have guards that don't guard. Oh well. Harods, the has- everything department store was much more interesting. Imagine a upper class Macy's that fills a whole mall that's been squished into a cube, and you're getting close. It's fancy, ritzy, and friggin huge. There is a room for meat, a room for bread, a room for jewelry,etc.; all on the first floor. There are 5 floors. A floor of womens shoes. Sports wear including polo outfits and saddles, half a floor of stuffed animals. Incredible. We spend half a day there. We ate pizza early that day, which was a very nice change from Norwegian food, so we were able to take in some Chocolate Fondue on floor 4 after looking at the Christmas room on floor 2. I was quite impressed. We headed over to the Wedgewood room on floor 5 after.
Day 3: Our tour book talked about these things called 'markets', and from the description we decided to check one out. Portabello Market, they called it. It was just like the pictures on TV of those 3rd world countries with narrow streets and guys selling fish out of a van and enough people that you can't see anything beond the fish van in front of you. I was pretty amazed at this place, an entire road, maybe a mile of it, the middle filled with people trying to see the vendors that filled the edges. We ate Mexican food here. Oh, man, that was fantastic, and Karin got a wallet, complete with Underground Pass Pocket. Very London. Very Sheik. Dinosaurs at the History and Science Museum. I can't say too much about the place, you just have to go there. See more below. We went back again.
Day 4 Bath: Not a bath, but Bath the town, now stop with the kiddie humor and pay attention. It's a damn nice place, and a huge change from London. It's much smaller and quieter and still has as much history. The Romans built a R&R joint here on top of the hot spring, and the ruins are still there. We toured this for most of a day. Very cool.It had the ruins and history of the Romans, and the 1700 buildup of the city as a place of healing. The water was suppose to cure things. We tried a glass, and it's pretty nasty stuff. And this was all inside, which was good because it was raining the whole day. Karin and I had our Norway rain gear on, so it was no problem, but it's just nice to be inside on those kinds of days. We saw the Bath Abby. Similar to Westminster Abby, but less crowded with people, both living and dead. I have some really neet picture. For dinner we headed to Sally Lunn's for one of her Bunns. Karin had rarebit. Not rabbit, but rarebit. It's a mix of cheese melted over bread. Very good stuff. Bree-ish. And dessert was fantastic- a Bunn with strawberry jam and clotted cream. I'm not sure what clotted cream is, bu the effect is has on me is friggin fantastic. We went back again just for this later in the trip.
Day 5 Bath 2: We crazed Bath for our second day, this time taking it easy and doing the bus tours. Very nice time we had on this cool Monday. We were the only people on the bus.
Day 6 Museums: Natural History and Victoria and Albert. Amazing. Think Exploratatorium but as a museum and you're close. At the front door greeting guests is one of those giant dinosaur skeletons filling the room. And it only gets better. Each hall walks you through the why do I care problem of museums and makes an interactive show of the hight points. One exhibit showed the cycle of life with a rabbit who ate grass, shat, died, decayed, and ended with grass growing on the grave. At the end of the tape, the girls voice, who was asking questions to the parental voice, demonstrated her graspness of this world truth with :"Oh boy!, Can we recycle another rabbit?". Friggin funny stuff. Best museum I've seen. We went on 2 days. And took lunch breaks of bread, olives and cheese on both days. Can't complain about that. Oh! The also have a full size model of a blue wale. Full size. Think about it.
Day 7 Tower of London: Today we Saw the Tower of London. And, if you are thinking what I was thinking, let me set you straight: It's not just one tower. It's huge. It's a small town inside a wall, that's all inside another wall, that's inside a moat (filled in in the 1800's). I was not prepared for this. We walked around for 5 or 6 hours looking at stuff, listening to tours guides and story tellers. Yes, story tellers. This guy dressed in costume said to the group 'small group today, does anyone have a story about the tower that they would like me to tell... I know most of them.' And he wasn't kidding either. Guy Faulk? Yes. 20 minutes of talking where he set the stage of religious tensions of the 1700 complete with who did what when to whom, then moved into the details of the plot to blow up Parliament complete with names and numbers, then finished with the outcome of Guy and his very shaky signature on the confession after spending a fortnight in the Tower. Any English teacher would be proud. A perfect Document Based Question answer. We saw the Crown Jewels. It's amazing how much energy went into creating trinkets for invented needs. The Coronation Ceremony involves 2 Scepters with huge demands, and a crown. All of gold covered with jewels...well I don't need to explain..it's the Crown Jewels.. and then there are half dozen crowns, a dozen gold maces, some huge goblets and eating stuff, a massive punch bowl-solid gold with intricate carvings.. all for a grandiose pissing contest of Mine's Bigger. What a life. And the Armory! That was cool. All the gold trinkets is a waste of time, but building suits of Armour and giant lances, now that's good use of the national GNP! It really was just like you imagine. They had huge suits of armor and swords and lances and pikes and horse armor, and kids armor, and guns and cannons, and then we were into the 1800's or so when guns came about and ended the reign of the knight. But while it lasted it was what the books were about. Simply amazing.
Day 8: Headed over the see London by Bus. We did the open top tourist bus. I got to see where Tony Blair lives. And the most expensive hotel, where Tom Cruz likes to stay. And the hotel that Madonna prefers. Fascinating? This took most of the day, I think. London Eye. We did not, however, go more then once on the London Eye. It's a Huge Ferris Wheel, with a much more respectable name. You get to ride once around for about 15 bucks a person, and this one circle takes half an hour. From the top we were looking down on Big Ben lit up in the night. I have pictures.
Day 9: Bus Tour and British Museum. Fish n Chips. The British Museum took us almost a day, and we didn't really see it all. The highlights were the Greek Pantheon and the dead old dudes, or, as the guide called them, Egyptian Mummies. In addition to this coolness, they had plaster casts of art from other places, including David. That was neat to see. Then we had lunch of bread, cheese, olives, and a hot chocolate. We finished off the day with a England classic of Fish'n Chips. Pretty damn good.
Day 10: If I had known how much we'd get done this day, I'd have scheduled it to be 2. 4:30am we awoke to the neighborly sound of People-so-Drunk-They-Don't- Know-How-Loud-They're-Talking arriving in the room upstairs. And their floor, our ceiling, squeaked. About 5am something publish hit our unlikable 1st floor window, 3 times. So we left. So glad to have the budget accommodations behind us. And due to our budget selection, we didn't feel 'comfortable' leaving our bags. So we carried them for the rest of the day. Keep that in mind as this day unfolds before you. We did some maintenance work with picking up pictures and trying to find breakfast (London doesn't open till 9. We ate at McDonald's. Don't you dare tell anyone.) Then headed over to see the cathedrals. St Paul's was first. And easily the best building I've been in. Ridiculous may be a good word here, but I'll save that word for Westminster Abby. I'll call this one Amazing. It's huge, and huge in all 3 dimensions, including a 500 step walkway that takes you up to a 'whispering gallery', where a whisper will bounce around the wall of the tremendous dome that you're standing in the edge of. Looking down is not recommended for those afraid of heights. Then the stairs continue up again to the top of the dome and have a nice view of the city. Then the stairs continue up again, to the point above the dome for a spectacular view of the city. I have pictures. And under the floor of this building are the 'Catacombs', or the 'Crypt'.. or something equally enticing. It's filled with dead people and odes to dead people. There were people that I've heard of lying around down there, some of the in enormous granite sarcophagus's. Sarcophagi? And a food court. We headed over to Westminster Abbey to see that one while we were in the neighborhood, and found a big line. After some humming and hawing we decided to go anyway and he line moved pretty fast, kinda like a ride at Disneyland. And the similarities didn't end there. It was almost a ride, like Splash Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean, only thing missing was sitting in a moving car. Or the water. That was also missing. It was a walking path that weaved through the 'highlights' of the Abby. You couldn't roam around and admire, you had to follow the path, and not too slowly of course, or the guy behind you would complain. It weaved though a huge collection of dead people. Kings and Queens, Dukes and Duchesses, a few of which even I had heard of. That was rather impressive, and the amount of dead people that had managed to pack into this place was no less impressive. Weaving through some of the tight places was sketchy with our large packs (remember those?), and turning around was out of the question. And all this stuff wasn't matched. Now I'm not one to criticize style, you've seen how I dress, but each of these large tombs was styled in it's own attention getting, grandiose, not-like-the-others manner and it, well, clashed. The amount of and exquisiteness of these tombs was amazing, and how the place looked so cluttered and messy with these works of art packed inside it was no less striking. We made out way to Bath soon after and began our vacation from this vacation. We got dinner at a Thai place in Bath, and it was good. Wonderful, in fact. Norway just doesn't have flavor like this, we savored our curries like fine brandy. And then we slept well in the warm quite of the B&B.
Day 11 Sunday: After this long in London it was time to relax and do nothing. So we did just that, except for these few exceptions: Breakfast. Cream Tea at Sally Lunns. Dinner at a pub. And working on the London Scrapbook. The pub had this great beer, Courage Best. I highly recommend it. The B&B was the perfect place to this nothing, warm, comfortable, friendly, and we didn't worry about our bags disappearing. How great is that?
12 Monday: The end to our trip began with reluctantly gaining consciousness in a tub. I mean in Bath. We checked out of the B&B and moseyed around the town for a few hours doing some Christmas shopping looking for the ideal gifts for our parents and other loved ones. Booze mostly. The train ride back to London was nice and uneventful, just like we hoped. Our Last Underground trip from Paddingon to Victoria Station happened, and then we were glad to have it behind us. The crowds and mess of the Underground epitomized what we came to dislike about the city; despite the positive characteristics of efficiency and ease. We were glad to be going home.
-Byron