Iceland for the New Year!

On the 29 of December I flew out of Oslo to Reykjavik to meet up with Ólafur Haraldsson, a Valle Scholar from Iceland. I knew Óli from studying together with him for our first year of grad school. He picked me up at the airport, and I have to say it was wonderful to see a familiar face in person. He was the first person from Seattle I had seen since leaving. While in Iceland I stayed with Óli and his grandparents, who were very kind to have me.

Within three hours of landing in Iceland, I was showered and dressed up to go with Óli to a Julefrokost that happens every year with his junior college friends. Now, Julefrokost is a Danish tradition that means Christmas Breakfast, but this was held in the evening as a dinner. While at dinner I asked Óli and several of his friends why it was still called this, but they really didn't have much of an answer for me. It just was this way, and always had been, and that was good enough for me. One of Óli's friends from junior college is the son of Congresswoman Sivjar Friðleifsdóttur, and she was kind enough to host the gathering at her house.

Óli and his friends have been together for many years and one of the things they have done is play on a soccer team together. During the formation of one such team, they needed to come up with a name for the team. This was the time when all the news of the Icelandic economic collapse was just starting to make it's appearance. One person who's name was always in the news was Jón Gerald Sullenberger. He was one of the people responsible for giving testimony to the Icelandic police that prompted investigation of many of the people involved in the collapse. Because his name was so prevalent in the news, they named the team after him. Coincidentally, Jón Gerald Sullenberger is the cousin of Captain Chelsea Sullenberger, who was responsible for landing the US Airways flight in the Hudson River in January of 2009.

When Óli and his friends had this Julefrokost celebration the previous year, they had extended an invitation to Jón Gerald to attend, but had not expected him to do so. To everyone's surprise he showed up to the dinner, and was invited back. For the dinner this year, he also attended and I was able to meet him.

At the dinner, I felt very much at home with Óli's friends, who were very welcoming. The food was also exceptional, with about 5 or 6 different courses. There was different kinds of pickled herring with different kinds of bread, cuts of whale with an incredibly delicious sauce, an Icelandic pâté called kaifa, a pork dish that reminded me of the Norwegian ribbe, and a dessert of chocolate mousse with brownies, raspberries and ice cream. The meal was decadent and amazing.

During the dinner the congresswoman was helping to serve dishes, but in the middle of it she had to leave to vote on an initiative of the Icelandic Parliament. An hour or so later she returned, and she had told the other members of Parliament after the main vote that she had to leave to return to the party. In fact, she left so that she could help with the dishes!

After dinner and dessert, several fireworks were set off in the street. This equated to the same amount that any small group of people would set off for the 4th of July in the US. I was told by the Icelanders that this was only a drop in the ocean when compared to what it was like on New Year's Eve.

The next day in Iceland, Óli's father took Óli, Óli's best friend Bessi and myself on a tour of Iceland. There are three main sights in Iceland that is referred to as the Golden Triangle, and we saw them all. The Triangle involves Geysir, the original geyser, Gullfoss waterfall, and Þingvellir, the Icelandic Parliament founded in 930 AD.

We started out early, well before the sun rose. The Triangle was a bit of a distance away and we wanted all the daylight we could to enjoy them in. On the way out to our first stop, we passed by Iceland's newest geothermal power plant. Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant had opened less than a year ago, and was still not at full capacity because it was expanding. Once it reaches it's ful capacity, it will be the largest geothermal power station in the world. We were able to see the turbines that were turned by the steam that was harvested from the ground, as well as an enormous diagram detailing the geothermal energy process. Before this, I had never quite grasped how geothermal power had worked. It was a very impressive process. Below you can see a picture of Óli on the left, me and Óli's friend Bessi standing at the powerplant.


As we left the power plant, we saw the many exhaust holes for all the steam after the power plant has used them. It was an enormous amount of steam, and led me to thinking that Iceland produces its own supply of clouds:


After visiting the power plant, the sun was just beginning to rise as we arrived at another location, the crater of a long-extinct volcano, Kerið. Everything was covered in a light amount of snow. As we got out of the car and began to walk to the crest of the crater, we looked down and started laughing. On the bottom of the crater we saw this:


Someone had taken the time to explain how the crater had formed with a single expressive word, KABOOM. Over 3000 years before, the crater was formed by an enormous volcanic explosion, so this was perfect. Other words were written in the snow here, but this was the first we saw as we went over the crest of the crater and it was so unexpected that we all started laughing.

The crater is quite large and I was told that in the summer months they hold concerts there because it works perfectly as a natural amphitheater.


Our next stop was to visit Geysir, the original geyser. Geysir has not erupted for several years, after a major earthquake changed something underground that messed up its regular eruptions. There is another geyser, Strokkur, that erupts ever 10-15 minutes. I was able to see it erupt, but Óli told me that he was embarrassed because Strokkur only coughed, and was only 5 meters tall when it should have been at least 10


Geysir has not erupted for several years, but there is another geyser, Strokkur, that erupts ever 10-15 minutes. I was able to see it erupt, but Óli told me that he was embarrassed because Strokkur only coughed, and was only 5 meters tall when it should have been at least 10.

In this area, all the moisture in the air freezes into sheets wherever the ground is cold enough for the ice to form. All of the main walking areas were covered in ice which made it very very slippery to walk.


My favorite of the three parts to the Golden Triangle was Gullfoss Waterfall. It was -10 degrees C outside, which meant that much of the waterfall was frozen over. The moving and churning water put a lot of moisture in the air, and this moisture froze to surfaces all over and around the waterfall. It was spectacular.




The moisture in the air froze to many surfaces all around the waterfall in layers. Over time, these layers built up to be very thick. One of the results was this field of grass that had over time accumulated enough ice to look like an alien landscape of tube-like plants lit up and glowing in the sun:


We climbed further down into the waterfall and from a point near the middle of it, I took a panoramic video that you can see below.

The final stop on the tour of the Golden Circle was Þingvellir, the site of the Icelandic Parliament. It was very interesting because it was founded so long ago, in 930 AD. Here, there is also the Lögberg (Law Rock), where rulings made by the Law Council were announced, and Þingvallavatn, Iceland’s largest lake. Below is a picture of us standing on the platform where the past, more recent governments have come into being. From the left you have Óli's dad Haraldur, Me, Bessi and Óli.

Þingvellir is the location of a divergent boundary of tectonic plates as they move apart from one another. The fault between the North American and Eurasian plates is here, and you can actually stand in the canyon formed between them. The picture below shows the Eurasian plate on the right, jutting out at a higher elevation from the North American plate, and the path that walks between them.

We probably would have enjoyed Þingvellir a bit more if it had not been -15 degrees C and we were out in it for a long time. We all wanted to get back in the car so we did not dawdle.

During our tour, Haraldur was telling interesting facts about Iceland. One such fact was how do you find your way when you get lost in an Icelandic forest? You stand up. Below you can see an example of an Icelandic forest:

Looking at the countryside, there are no trees to be seen. It turns out that there were a group of Icelanders that attempted to plant trees, but popular opinion against them stopped them from proceeding. Trees are not in Iceland, and they will stay out of Iceland. For any kind of lumber, they tend to import it from Norway or Denmark.

Also, Haraldur explained why Icelanders stay so well preserved at 50. It's because they live in a refrigerator. An apple inside the fridge stays fresher for longer than an apple outside the fridge. It makes sense, and I am sure that this can also be said for Norwegians.

On New Year's Eve, I awoke to fireworks going off. Lots of bottle rockets and mortars going off, maybe one every few minutes, but it continued through the entire day, nomatter where you were. In the morning and early afternoon, I went to the Blue Lagoon Hotspring with Óli, his friend Arnar, Bessi and Bessi's girlfriend Erna. The lagoon is so named because there is an algae in the water that colors the water blue. Also part of the lagoon experience is covering yourself in a white silica mud that is supposed to be very good for your skin. While we put the mud masks on our faces, it was also thrown around at each other a bit. We're very mature.

Above you can see Óli and myself. Below you can see me, Arnar directly behind me, Bessi behind him, and Óli to the right. Enjoying a beer while in the hot spring was fantastic.


The lagoon was beautiful, and a very interesting experience when you can have the weather outside the lagoon be -15 degrees but the water inside the lagoon be +40 degrees. Iceland really is the land of fire and ice. This creates an incredible amount of fog. The difference in temperature was especially noticeable as I tried to take pictures. My camera is not waterproof and there is no good place to put a camera down, so you had to carry it all the time and keep your hand out of water. I did this for only 7 or 8 minutes when I noticed that ice was beginning to form on the hairs on the back of my knuckles.



Later that evening, I went with Óli to meet an aunt and uncle of his and attend a bonfire. In Iceland, they have bonfires all over organized by the city. The idea is to take things from the previous year and burn them and start anew. There were many people at this event and the amount of fireworks going off steadily increased as time went on. The bonfire is enormous, probably 10 feet high at least.


Later in the evening, everyone goes home and watches an Icelandic television program at 10:30 that summarizes the past year. It was in Icelandic so unfortunately I could not understand much of it, but there were still several things that I could pick up on. It was really interesting that everything stopped while this program was running. The fireworks, which had been ever-present the entire day, suddenly went quiet as this program started. The nation as a whole sat down and watched it.

Óli and I went out on a hill after the program to watch the fireworks. Iceland does not have any official fireworks, but almost every single person was setting them off. The difference between this and what I am used to in Seattle is amazing. In Seattle, everyone goes to a high point and watches the fireworks from afar, and if you’re high enough you might see more than one show. In Iceland, you don’t watch from afar, you watch from INSIDE the show. Fireworks are going of everywhere, and it’s like a war zone. As time goes on it gets foggier and foggier from all the fireworks going off for literally hours. After seeing this, I have come to the understanding that no one celebrates New Year’s properly besides Iceland.

The next day, Óli and I went on a hike to a nearby mountain. It is actually not a mountain but a full volcanic ridge called Esjan, and we climbed the 700 meter peak of Þverfellshorn. During the hike we ran into the Icelandic equivalent of the Surgeon General. It was a good hike, and an excellent way to start the New Year.

At the top, we wrote this in the summit log:


On January 2, I left Iceland to return to Trondheim.

Traveling around this holiday was an unforgettable experience that I will hold with me forever. I was able to meet my distant family that makes up part of my heritage, and part of a heritage I grew up with. Now I better understand where it comes from and why we do certain things, and because of this it is more important to me. My trip to Iceland was also unforgettable because I was able to see the beauty of the country, but also meet my friend Óli again, and he was the first familiar face I had met in person since leaving Seattle. My Norwegian and Icelandic adventures combined to make the best holiday season I’ve ever had.

Christmas continues...

After Tore Ramsrud picked me up from Morton Indrelid's house, I settled back into the room I was staying in while at the Ramsrud's. The next day, Tore took me to a forested area 5-10 minutes away from his house to take me cross-country skiing. It had been 12 or so years since I had been on skis, and I have never tried anything but downhill, so it was a new experience. It was a lot of fun and I managed to stay on my feet alright as we did a short 3-4 kilometer loop before returning home. During the time on skis, I only fell and ate snow twice, but both of those times I managed to get covered in snow. I think the greatest difficulty in cross-country skiing is turning. At least it was for me, but I may just be inept. Here is a picture of me in the act:

It was a lot of fun and I think it also was a positive experience because I was able to move forward and stay on my skis, rather than falling down all the time. Tore explained to me on our trip that this was a very common thing to do with family on a weekend in the wintertime. All ages of the family would get on skis and go out on the ski trails together. He also mentioned that Norwegians were born with skis on their feet, which makes it quite painful for the mothers. During our loop, we passed by an old German airstrip from World War 2. It was all covered in snow, but you can still clearly see where the old thoroughfare was:


After skiing, Tore and I returned home for lunch. One of the things on the menu was rakfisk. Rakfisk is trout that is cleaned very thoroughly and then salted and fermented for 3 months. This cures the fish and it can be eaten without cooking. This process also tends to make the fish smell terrible. At stores, you can actually get different smell levels of the fish, and the kind I tried was the low-to-medium range of smell. It still smelled bad. In addition to the food, Eldebjørg brought to my attention the serving spoon being used. On the back of the spoon's handle there was the Nazi insignia with the eagle and swastika. It apparently came from Eldebjørg's cabin when they first bought it. After buying the cabin there was a bunch of junk that had been left there and as she and Tore were going through it, this spoon surfaced. They've kept it ever since because it is an interesting artifact. They told me before I began that I would need all the luck I could get for this meal; not only was I having rakfisk but it was being served with a Nazi spoon.

Rakfisk is usually had on lefse with sour cream and onions. After trying some, I have to admit that I did not really like it. Tore told me that no one really likes it when they are young and you only like it as you grow older. Clearly, I am not old enough. Still, I am happy that I tried it, and will try it again in say, 5 or 10 years to see if I'm old enough to enjoy it then.

Later that night, I met with more relatives. These were two sisters and a brother who were cousins to Tore and grew up with him. Their names were Bjørg, Turid and Svenn. I was able to hear several stories about them growing up and talk a bit about family. Here is a picture of us all below. Svenn is on the left, then me, then Bjørg, Turid and Eldebjørg (Tore was taking the picture).

In addition to meeting them, we all enjoyed one of the best spreads of Norwegian food that I have ever seen, not to mention been able to enjoy. So many delicious things were there, Kransekake, gorokake, about 5 other types of traditional Norwegian cookies, chocolates, and other incredible treats. I think it is probably one of my favorite "meals" that i have had in Norway. It was all desserts, but I think we ate enough of all of them to have it count as a meal. Wonderful tastes, if perhaps a bit unhealthy. Still, it's the holidays!

That night a good deal of snow fell and Tore and Eldebjørg's grandchildren Maren and Selma came to visit. I figured the grandchildren would enjoy a cave to play in so I piled up a great deal of snow and then began hollowing it out from the inside. After an hour or so it started to take shape and I was actually surprised and how large it got. I kept working to improve its size and make sure it was sturdy enough to stay up safely, and after another half hour, Eldebjørg came outside with cake and hot chocolate for everyone. The snow cave was large enough that Maren, Selma, Tore and Eldebjørg were all able to sit inside at once while having hot chocolate and cake. The picture below shows the cave with all but Tore inside it.

Now we have everyone inside the cave at once:

And here is a cute picture of Tore's two-year-old grandchild, Selma:


My last day in Hønefoss, Tore took me to the place where my Tipp-Oldemor (Great-great-Grandmother) had lived. Hønefoss has a paper mill that used to be and still is a major factor in the economy of the town. Years and years ago they employed many workers before the process was more industrialized, and these workers needed a place to stay. My Tipp-Oldemore ran a bunkhouse near the factory that many workers used to stay at. Tore showed me the site, and while the factory is still there, the bunkhouse is long gone. All that is there now is a parking lot. Even if there is no longer any building there, it was still very cool to be able to see the site and stand in the place where my family once was.

After this, we headed to Olso Airport so that I could fly to Iceland!

Christmas Adventures

Now is the time for a LONG overdue post. There's a great deal to be said, so I will be reporting as a series of updates, starting with the oldest events and traveling through time to return to the present.

First off, I spent Christmas this year in Hønefoss with my distant Norwegian relatives. Hønefoss is a small city about 40 kilometers southeast of Oslo. I spent the days leading up to Christmas with Tore and Eldbjørg Ramsrud, then December 24th-26th with Morton and Vivi Indrelid, and then returned to Tore and Eldbjørg's for several more days after Christmas. Tore is my second cousin, two generations removed, and Morton is my first cousin, two generations removed.

On December 21st I traveled from Trondheim to Oslo by train. The train lines in Norway are very old and the routes they take have many curves so the trains are unable to go very fast. Because of this, the trip took over 6 hours to travel only 400 kilometers. I was able to use the time on the train to see much of the Norwegian countryside. EVERYTHING was covered in snow. It made everything look like Christmas, so it was a very good feeling to have while traveling down to spend the holidays with family. I know that Norway is supposed to be very green, but because of the snow everything looked black, white and shades of gray. It still was beautiful, but I want need to come back after the snow melts to be able to see the full spectrum of the countryside.

Tore met me at the Olso train station and drove me to his house. Tore and Eldbjørg live in a house outside of the city center, and it is very comfortable. They were very kind to let me stay in a guest room in the basement. My first impression of their house was that there were many doors which allowed you to isolate heat into small pockets rather than heat the entire house. It put me in mind of the Titanic which had compartments that could be shut off to keep water from flooding to the rest of the ship. All the doors make complete sense when you have to last through the Norwegian winter, and you don't want to be heating the entire house all the time.

My first day was spent with Tore doing errands to prepare for Christmas, as well as giving gifts and sharing Christmas tidings to people around town. We went to the grocery store to do some shopping and I had a very surreal moment as I realized doing something very similar with Bestemor (Grandmother) 15 or 20 years before. Going around, helping with groceries, meeting people; it struck me as so familiar and put a smile on my face when I realized it. I still felt like a kid following an adult around.

After shopping and errands were complete I helped Eldbjørg make goro kake, which are a kind of traditional Norwegian cookie. The dough is rolled out thin and cut into rectangles that are placed in a buttered griddle and heated for several minutes until crispy. The griddle has a pattern that is pressed into the dough as they cook. They tasted very good.


The next day there was more traveling around to meet people and deliver things, and to make preparations for Christmas. All throughout my time there, I was talking with Eldbjørg and Tore about speaking Norwegian, and trying to improve my language abilities. Eldbjørg works with immigrants to help them learn Norwegian, and she had a book that I was able to use while I was there that also helped me with many of the language basics.

Later that day s tree was brought in and set up in a stand in the main room. Tore and Eldbjørg's son, Knut Andreas, came over and I was able to meet him. Together we helped Tore decorate the tree in proper Norwegian fashion, with lights and Norwegian flags.


After the tree was decorated, Tore, Eldbjørg, Knut Andreas and I sat down to watch a television program that showed a skit called “Dinner for One” on the Norwegian station NRK1. It is a Norwegian tradition to watch this on 12/23 every year in Norway, but Germany and some other countries tend to watch it on New Years Eve. It started when NRK was only channel that everyone had, and so everyone watched this. It became a tradition and has been playing since at least the mid 1970’s. The skit involves an old woman celebrating a party at an empty table, with six or so imagined guests. Her butler serves her and her imagined guests all the courses of the meals, as well as toasts with her, to amusing results. It was interesting that a Norwegian tradition involved watching a British comedy skit the day before Christmas Eve.

It snowed about 15 centimeters of snow during the night before Christmas Eve. I offered to shovel the snow for Tore and spent a good hour or two making sure that all the snow was clear in the places people would park that night, and that paths through the yard and to the house were clear. I enjoyed it because in Seattle we don't get this level of snowfall, so it was a nice change and a chance to play in the snow. It continued to snow throughout the day. Since Norway celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas day, and it was snowing on Christmas Ever, I am declaring a white Christmas for this year. Two years in a row! Last year in Seattle, this year in Hønefoss.

Tore drove me over to Morton and Vivi's house, about 15 minutes away from Tore's house. I met them as well as their son Øyvind. Their house is built right on the edge of a fjord, and it was incredibly beautiful. Sadly the fjord was not fully frozen over so I couldn't walk on it, but the snow covering it looked gorgeous. Talking with Øyvind, he told me that no one is allowed to build houses that close to the fjord any longer, so his parents are very lucky that they are so close. Also, their house seems to be built in a somewhat similar style to a Viking longhouse, which struck me as very appropriate. Here is the view from their front window out onto the fjord:


Morton and Vivi understand more English than they can speak, just as I understand more Norsk than I can speak. Initially there was some awkward interactions and we mostly worked through Øyvind who acted as a translator. I didn't want the evening to continue like that so I slowly started to increase the amount of Norwegian I attempted to speak until I finally just started going for it, inhibitions left behind. As the evening went on, we all became far more relaxed with one another and we continued to communicate more and more, me with an amazing attempt at pig-Norsk. I think it worked well.

In the NTNU environment, everyone immediately begins to talk to you in English if you fumble with Norsk. Tore and Eldbjørg Ramsrud both speak excellent English despite what they say, and my first days with them began to take me beyond the NTNU environment because they would actively help me as I fumbled my Norsk. The first days with them helped very much to prepare me for spending time with Morton and Vivi, who spoke less English and put me out of my comfort zone a fair amount. This was definitely a good thing because I think that in the 8 days that I was with Tore and Eldbjorg, as well as Morton and Vivi, I learned and got more experience than the rest of my stay in Norway so far.

One very good experience that I shared occurred as I sat at the kitchen table with Morton as he showed me pictures of my great-grandparents (Oldeforeldre) and my great-great-grandparents (Tipp Oldeforeldre). This was still at a point where we were a bit awkward communicating. Even if I don’t have the greatest of vocabularies, I still understand family relationships: Mother, Father, Grandparents, Children, Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, etc. I really enjoyed having the conversation with him about my ancestors, and then I went to talk to him about my uncles/aunts as well as cousins, so it wasn’t just a one sided conversation. It was the first event that really helped me gain confidence with talking in Norwegian (Or at least the first that I just decided to blunder forward).

Vivi cooked an amazing dinner of potatoes, ham, elg (moose), ribbe (roast pork ribs), home-made sauerkraut, julepølse (Christmas sausage) and vegetables, served with beer and aquavit. It was magnificent and delicious. For dessert we had multebær (cloudberry) jam with home-made whipped cream. Here is a picture of us sitting down to dinner:

Morton and Vivi have an additional room outside of their house with beds in it that I was able to sleep in while I stayed with them. It was very peaceful, with no traffic around and it was basically my own little house; completely serene. I realized that between beds at Tore’s and Morton's, my bed at NTNU is so crappy and I've just become accustomed to it. I would be in pain when I get back to Trondheim, my time here spoiled me. My bed back in Seattle will be heaven. Here is a picture of me walking down the path to my room that night:

The next morning I was able to walk around the area the Morton and Vivi live, and along Tyrifjorden, the fjord. There is a large island in the fjord that is connected with the mainland by a bridge. The island is the biggest in the fjord and has a golf course on it. When I returned to Morton's, I sat down with him and talked to him about the fjord and he showed me the map. The big island with the golf course was called Storøya (Big Island). There is also an island called Geitøya, where some farmers used to keep there goats. Very creative naming schemes.

We watched part of a Norwegian television program about the train route from Bergen to Oslo. It basically was a video camera that was strapped to the front of the train and showed the entire 7 hour journey. We started watching the program when the train was at a station that you transfer to another that goes to where Morton's cabin is. The Bergen-Oslo train left the station, as as it passed by the nearby fjord, he pointed out his cabin that they use in the summer time. As we watched the television and talked, Morton shared his home made cherry wine and sherry with me, which was excellent.

For dinner that night we had leftovers of the Christmas meal, and it was just as good as it was the previous night. Vivi is an excellent cook. After dinner we watched part of the animated movie, Happy Feet, which is about penguins. In Norway, most English movies are subtitled, but fully animated movies like this one are dubbed. I had a strange experience watching it because while everyone was speaking in Norwegian, there was a group of three smaller penguins that were speaking Norwegian with a Spanish accent. It was so weird to be able to hear it and pick out that they were speaking with an accent.

My last day with Morton, Vivi and Øyvind I was able to see more of the fjord because the day was clear rather than overcast. Øyvind and I took Morton's dog Dixie out for a walk and walked across the bridge and around Storøya. The sun was starting to set so it made for some very beautiful pictures of the surrounding area. Below you can see Øyvind and Dixie, a view of Storøya from the mainland and then two picture taken from the bridge.

After walking around, we got prepared for dinner. Morton and Vivi's daughter Helene was going to come for dinner with her two children, Markus and Mattias. I met Helene, as well as her boyfriend, Jan Egel, and the twins. Markus and Mattias were 7 years old, and while we couldn't communicate very well, as soon as they realized I would play with them, wrestle with them and swing them around, they were very excited to meet me. After dinner, Tore Ramsrud came to pick me up and took a picture of us all. In the back row is me, Øyvind and Vivi, and on the couch is Morton, Markus, Jan Egel, Helene and Mattias.