Oslo

We took advantage of the bank holiday last Monday and spent the long weekend in Oslo. This was my first visit to Scandinavia. My first impression was of the airport, which looked just as I expected, all steel and blonde wood and glass like an Ikea store. Our bus to the city was easy to find and ran on time like all the transportation that we took while there. It’s a smooth running country. We noticed that everyone on the motorway seemed to be driving at a reasonable speed and with plenty of space between cars. We saw no traffic violations nor heard any loud mufflers or horn honking the entire weekend. Norway is a few weeks behind England in weather, so we got to see the sweet green of new leaves and tulips as tall as irises. The hills were a lovely contrast of the dark needles of the pine trees and the light leaves of what I think were mostly elms. There was rain and mist intermittently that made the scene even more charming. I would have appreciated gloves and a hat at times, but we managed the cold with frequent stops in cafes.


The locals sat outdoors under blankets provided by the restaurants. Many had overhead heaters as well. The greater Oslo area has around 750,000 people, and after London’s crush, we found it eerily quiet. We’d read that Norwegians love recreation in the outdoors and thought the city might fill on Monday. There were a few more cars and people, but it was still quiet by comparison. We visited the most popular tourist attraction, the Olympic ski jump, which can be seen from the city. We took the metro there. Within five stops, we were out of the city and climbing the hills into suburbia. The homes are a bit of a cross between Swiss chalets and Romanian villas, like gingerbread houses without the gingerbread. There were crowds of mountain bikers getting on the train after what looked to be a day of riding in the mud. The advertisements and route maps for the metro are not affixed to the walls of the train so that people with muddy pants can unhook the posters from the wall and sit on them to protect the cloth seats. So civilized.


While we were at the top of the ski jump, it started to rain and even a few flakes of snow fell. The view of the city and fjord are worth the trip and the climb of about 50 stairs. We also took a two hour boat ride down the Oslo fjord with commentary in English and German and blankets. Oslo’s expensive so we didn’t do many things that included an entrance fee, but we did go to the resistance museum inside the castle. We tried to go to the Munch museum, but found it closed after a longish walk to get there. The Scream hasn’t been returned yet anyway.



We spent the warmest and sunniest day in a statue park with hundreds of human statues engaged in every imaginable activity all by the same sculptor. Our hotel was located fairly close to City Hall where the Nobel Prize is awarded. I don’t feel a pressing need to return to Oslo, but I think seeing some of the natural beauty of western Norway would be nice.

Rome

Mom, Dad, Paul and I spent Easter weekend walking Rome. I think the bottom of my feet have bruises. All of the major sites were more crowded then I’ve ever seen them before, but St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museum were the only two that really affected us. We waited in line for two hours to get into St. Peter’s. Many of you have been there and remember being able to wander about the basilica freely. The entire center isle was filled with chairs for the service, so we were limited to the outer edges. Michelangelo’s Pieta was separated by a curtain and the area within was clogged with people. Nevertheless, the place was awesome.



The square in front of the church was also filled with chairs, and the line was four deep and ran along the columns in a nearly complete circle of the piazza. The line for the Vatican Museum was equally impressive, snaking along two walls, and all the way to the side entrance to the basilica’s piazza. No, we did not attend the service. We basked in pagan Rome at the Colosseum and Forum instead.



I needed the walking and standing to counter my indulgence in gelato every day and delicious pasta and wine every night. Along with the ‘must see’ sites, we wandered through neighborhoods that were new to me.



I’ve seen enough churches to last me a while. As always, I leave Rome wanting to know art and architecture better but feeling like I’ve learned a bit more through osmosis.



I’ve had two weeks off from school and don’t mind going back on Monday. It’s a downhill slide until the end of the year now. The seniors have one week of classes and then are dismissed to prepare for their IB exams. The tenth graders are going to Verdun and some other places in France and Belgium for a week at the end of April. The ninth graders are spending a day with the Royal Shakespeare Company and watching Macbeth. I will teach Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet at the same time. Work doesn’t get much better.

And of course there’s more traveling to do. We’re hitting the north for England’s bank holidays: Norway, Iceland, and Denmark.

Andorra

This job comes with more holiday time than I've ever had. It also comes with more paperwork, a longer commute, and longer meetings than I've had. Andorra was great fun.


ANDORRA'S CAPITAL: ANDORRA LA VELLA


WAITING FOR THE NIGHT TRAIN BACK TO PARIS


SKI LESSONS


THE WINDSWEPT SLOPES


As always, Paul made all the travel arrangements. All I had to do was pack! We took the Eurostar to Paris and enjoyed a meal and a walk while we passed the time until our night train to the French/Andorran boarder. Our trip home was the same thing in reverse. Those two weekends in Paris came right after the birthday/proposal weekend in Paris, making for three weekends in a row in that romantic town. Isn't life grand?

We skied every day but the last when we took a bus ride through the rugged mountains to the capital city to check out tax free shopping. The people were friendly, and the slopes offered everything we wanted except snow. We got spoiled by the snow in Colorado last year. Still, the prices were low enough that we could afford two mornings of private lessons with Alejandro from Argentina. My skiing vastly improved thanks to this and then slowly deteriorated as the week went by and I drifted into old habits. More lessons next time!


Mom and Dad are coming to Europe for the first time since I moved over here. Actually it's the first time since I graduated from high school. Along with seeing some English sights, the four of us are going to Rome for Easter. Look for my next blog to be about that.

Hope you are all well.

recipe for turning forty

Turning 40 has all kinds of attachments, I guess. People raise their eyebrows at the very least anyway. For me, it’s been as easy as turning 20 and 30. Maybe I’ve found the perfect recipe.

Ingredients:
Europe
Younger boyfriend
Paris
Travel

▫ First move to Europe a few years before turning 40. This will make you feel like you’re 27 instead of 37.
▫ Find a younger boyfriend. Not too young mind you. Like an avocado that you press the stem end for ripeness, you can check a younger man’s readiness. Has he settled into his career? Does he have a savings account? Does he own real estate? These are good ripeness tests. But you don’t want over ripe. Is he spontaneous? Does he like to travel? Does he like to dance?
▫ Spend two years meeting your boyfriend in romantic places all over Europe. I recommend Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Lisbon.



▫ The last ingredient is a bit out of your control, but this is true of many recipes. You can mix everything together perfectly but the oven may heat unevenly or the humidity level may cause your cake to fall. It takes some luck. Your boyfriend takes you to Paris for your birthday, just one night. He takes you to the Moulin Rouge for dinner and the show. Then he takes you to the Trocadero to view the Eiffel Tower at night. While sitting on the steps, he asks you to marry him. Accept.

I love forty!

city gardening

I returned from sunny South Africa and it’s plethora of flowers itching to do some gardening. The weather here was obligingly mild, so I put my front garden plans into effect. We have a ledge beneath our bedroom windows. It exists because the upper floors of all of the buildings on our street are recessed from the ground floor about three feet. It’s not a balcony really, just a deep ledge. The back garden consists of flower pots on deep window sills. I guess this is city gardening. The realtor in the business beneath us smiled encouragement each time I passed him on my way in and out of the flat to the back of the buildings where I had soil and pots stashed by our trash bins. We now have a row of lavender that will bloom all summer and can be trimmed like a hedge, bordered with rhododendron, fuchsia, and finally a lemon scented evergreen at both ends of the row. Now when we look out the bedroom windows, we see green instead of tar and roofing material. I’ve also got some pots with tulips from our last trip to Amsterdam and two pots with geraniums from the summer that should have died months ago. I don’t have the heart to kill them, so they sit out of favor in the corner. One has flowers on it! Last week, winter finally arrived as the photo shows. We woke to a winter wonderland that seldom occurs in London. The plants are fine, and the geranium has another bloom on it.

South Africa

Happy New Year!

The best way to deal with London’s dark and wet winter is to go south, and Cape Town did not disappoint.

I’ll stick to the highlights. If you want more, please email me and I’ll go on and on. We were there for twelve days, and Paul made sure that we did something new each day. I’ll give them to you in order.

Day One: We flew from London to Johannesburg in the dark and without a window seat, but on our leg from Joburg to Cape Town, Paul was upgraded to a window in business class and gave it to me. I spent the entire flight looking out that window at my first glimpse of Africa. Joburg seems to go on forever with townships dissolving into mines and then into flat, red earth with only a few roads and one snaking river to break up the land. As we neared Cape Town, the landscaped changed to row after row of jagged mountains and deep valleys. Green crept into the landscape and the rock turned to grey and white. As we started our approach, I spotted Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned, and the steel blue of the Atlantic. We turned and Table Mountain entered my view, not from the angle of the photos I’ve seen, but recognizable. As we finished our turn, I spotted a wide curving shore, False Bay and the other side of the peninsula that begins with Cape Town and ends with Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. On that day, I would have called it the Indian Ocean, but I have since learned that Cape Agulhas is Africa’s southern most point and where the fish and plants that live in the water are more similar to the Indian than the Atlantic. Whatever body of water it is, the combination of oceans on either side and Table Mountain in between is a spectacular introduction to the city.

Day Two

Paul’s parents, Neville and Jenny, drove his sister, Melissa, and us to Cape Point, the end of the peninsula. We stopped on our way at Boulder’s Beach where African penguins have taken up residence. The beach is open to the public, but only a limited number are allowed each day. A section has been closed to swimming and walkways have been put in so the birds can be viewed without disturbance. On the road south of Boulders, we encountered the first of many baboons with their young. This group was paying tag on the gate of someone’s driveway. Once in the nature reserve of Cape Point, the houses disappear. The road is high above the sea and the landscape is low growing bushes and a profusion of flowers I’ve never seen before. We parked and walked to the first lighthouse. A second was built lower down the cliff because of prevalent mist higher up. We walked along the eastern side of the point to a viewing platform above this second lighthouse. By now, I knew I wasn’t looking at the Atlantic and the Indian, but this doesn’t diminish the feeling that standing at that point brings. From there, we walked west to the edge of the Cape of Good Hope and then down to the sea and another parking lot where Neville and Jenny waited in the car. Paul and Melissa have been here several times but were moved to wonder about the feelings of men like Diaz and da Gama as they rounded the point just as I was. I got my first of several sunburns on this day, tricked by the cooling sea breeze into forgetting I was in Africa after all. We ended the day with sundowners at a restaurant on the beach. Sundowners are drinks that you have while you watch the sun sink into the ocean. We sat on a large patio filled with suntanned and relaxed people. The view of the 12 apostles, a mountain range running behind Table Mountain, was spectacular. Our meal close by was of melt-in-your-mouth steak, unlike anything available in the UK. Yummy.