New Years in Oslo Explosions everywhere. Drunk young'ns. Roman candle fired into a house. Good times. One of the great things about Oslo during New Years is the snow. Not because it white or beautiful, but because it's fireproof. For y'all that come from the Midwest, this may not be a new experience, but for this used-to-live-in-brown-hills-drought-stricken-California guy, it was quite a shock.
There is no one show, no Disneyland or Sea World or city funded barge in the bay, new years is a Do It Yourself event in Norway. And they take it very seriously. We went for a walk around the house a few minutes after midnight to see what we could see. There were several big explosions in one spot, which I figured was 'the show', then several more from behind, then some from the left, and slowly (it was in the 25 degrees F outside) in realized I was in the middle of an exploding city. Everywhere I looked there was bursts of color along the horizon and behind trees. The sound of explosions were a constant hum.
The method of the madness behind this, as best as I can figure from by observations of live Norwegians, goes like this:

1) Get alcohol way in advance. This is harder to get then the explosives.

2) Get fireworks way in advance.

3) On the 31st, start drinking.

4) When it's midnight, stagger to a nearby street corner, the one with the crowd of other drunks, and set off your explosives. They seem to think it's safer to blow things up while standing inside of a tightly packed group of people.

We witnessed one of these packs doing their work. This group had gathered under some power/telephone cables and everybody was drunk, some so drunk they were throwing themselves onto cars that passed by. From this group of 30 or 60 people a constant stream of entertainment would flow. Did I mention they were all under the drinking age? Yea, no boring adults here. Except the ones on the balcony of the nearest house. They looked like adults, quietly watching the mayhem in the street below. It really was a good show. Then the drunk guy put a roman candle in the snow at a wee bit too low of an angle, and it shot directly into the balcony, the entire candle. The adults retreated to the safety of inside, and watched the rest of the show from behind a window. Nobody seemed to get hurt, and that lovely snow kept the house form bursting into flame. And from what I hear, that was a bit unusual. A rumor I heard was 1000 people get hurt each year in Norway on new years. And with a total population of 4 million, that's pretty big.
I have to say this was one of the best New Years yet. I have never been in the middle of a constant fireworks show, I cannot say how amazing that was, the roman candle and drunks were only added bonuses.

Posted by byron at 05:13 PM

Sledding. For Real this Time You've seen those crazy Olympic Bobsledders on TV, right? Remember the smaller, my-gawd-he-must-be-nuts event called Luge? It's the one where the guy lays down on this sled and steers with his feet while watching it all by looking over his chest? Keep that image in mind. I'll be adding to it.
Picture a ski slope, maybe green circle to easy blue square in steepness, about a mile long, and maybe 40 feet wide. A very steep, extra wide fire road that weaves it's way around the Oslo hills.
Now take that first picture of the luge, put me on it, and the put us on the ski trail. Now animate it. Not bad, eh? It took me half the run to notice how steering works: you lean left to turn right, lean right to turn left. It's the opposite of a bike, which is how spent the first half of the trip trying to steer. Now what does that animation in your head look like? Pretty good, eh? Now add the somewhat soft power snow drift on one side of the trail, and the steep drop off that lay on the other, and this has the makings for quite a comical adventure.
We had a blast. Sledding is one of the more exciting things I've done, its like skiing, but (for me) without the control, and with a much more intense sense of speed. I mean, you lying down 6 inches above the ground, getting to much closer usually means something bad happpened...
This sledding run in Oslo is even services by public transportation. That's how good Norway is. The light rail train stops at the bottom of the hill, ( it has more stops then these 2, it's a normal service route with some special stops. They didn't build a train just for the sledding hill....) and goes up to the top about a mile or so down the line.
Our particular day has some interesting traffic. The train didn't go all the way up the hill, so they train company had hired Maxi Taxis to haul us the rest of the way. It was a nightmare of delays and waiting. All in -10 degree weather. I think it took up an hour to get back to the top of the hill, after our 20 minute sledding ride, which was the major reason we didn't go anymore. An hour standing around in -10 is not fun. Neither is navigating a improvised mass transit device.
But what a one run it was. As I said, I had the steering wrong for half the trip, which kept thing interesting. Especially with my liking for speed. Lugeing goes something like this: sit down on the thing. Lift my feet, and hang on. When something gets in the way, turn. This usually resulted in some panic as my turning made the problem worse. About here my feet would go back down to get some control and bleed off some speed, and that would throw snow up in my face with enough vengeance to make my very own white out. So now I was heading for badness and blind. Ah.. what fun that was.
I didn't have any major misshapes, but the other two in our group did. Lars was heading down and managed to loose control, an especially easy thing to do, and realized peril was near when he saw a tree appear before him. He dove off the sled just before impact, leaving the sled to slam into the tree without him. The damage to sled was minor, these things are made for abuse, but the tree suffered some significant bark removal. Kristen had the opposite problem. She was sitting still. A guy behind her had some steering issues, and ran into her. She was OK, but man, she had a monster of a bruise the next day.
Ah. Winter Fun.