Weekedn in Nesoddtangen ‒ Oslo fjord

I spend a very relaxing weekend along Oslo fjord.
By the way, there is no fjord, even though the name would suggest so.

I got invited to this place and was told I will only need a toothbrush and my swimming gear. So I packed my bag knowing there will be lots of sun and sea involved.

Before we even got to the cabin, we stopped to swim. It was a warm day; over 30°C and there were plenty of others seeking relief from the heat.

During the weekend we got plenty to eat. Our hosts were very generous and relaxed. They showed around the places and took us swimming where they usually go.

During our evening walk it became clear that this place is something special. I was told how the waterway was the main way to commute as well as to communicate and has only changed in the recent times. This old tradition has still left its mark on the cultural landscape. The shores are characterised by side-by-side built small private cabins, which were earlier used for changing clothes at the time before contemporary bikinis. Each cabin has its private pier. At convenient locations there was also a pier for public use. This was where the "shop" boat would stop and people would gather to get their supplies. These days such piers are common places to go to swim (and jump) for those who don't have their private piers.

In these days, the cabins/piers are places to get together with your family and friends, maybe grill something, possibly even sleep. But they are still used for swimming as well as places to store fishing gear and anchor your boat.

The cottage where we spent our night was a cute small cottage on a hill, on a walking distance from the shore. It was built at a time when Norway was a poor country and building material were scarce. The living room was for example and old wagon, which was modified later to be the core of the cottage. I was also told that at that time (some 100 years ago) floors were usually made in a way that between two wooden floor layers they would put a layer of soil. These days the bottom wooden floor has already collapsed and would need to be repaired at some point. But you would never guess the cottage is actually so old and has history as told. The constant care taking with painting must have had its effect. And I also heard how all different owners had add something new to the cottage, making it bigger, while also restoring it.

On our last day, we went for a last swim, and the locals would show how to jump and do it with style!

On the way home, late in the evening, when the light was already scare, but when you could still see ‒ as you know the nights here (almost 60° North) are light, and total darkness is not something you experience up here at summer ‒ we saw a moose and a baby moose next to the road at the edge of a forest. We were so exited that we went back and tried to see them again. But by the time we got the car turned and got there, they were already gone.

How was your weekend?

Temporary home No.x

Some of you wished to see where I live now when in Norway. I made a collection of pictures I took with my phone, so I have to excuse for the bad quality I get when taking pictures indoors.

The most important part is the kitchen! It is the room where I had most expectations when I moved in. I needed it to be functional. Some basic tools were missing, but otherwise it works. There is even hot water from the pipes, and room to wash dishes, jee!

kitchen

kitchen and dining room

The living room is rarely used.

living room

Already the first day I noticed how the kitchen table was too long, and it was actually extendable. So I took the extension part away and ever since I am using it as a portable table where ever I need it. It functions well when I for example need more light for reading, I just place it on the window shell and sit in front of open window to get fresh breeze. Another place where I use it is as a portable computer table.

My fresh air reading corner

I also have plenty of extra space in the hallway.

hallway

Bedroom is functional, although I don't like it has this whole floor carpet. I have to darken the room at night since it is too bright here at summer. After closing all the curtains, I hang one extra dark towel as an extra curtain to darken the room. Secondly, I open one of those closet doors, so the remaining light which enters the room does not reach my eyes and interfere with my sleep.

bedroom

In the bathroom/toilet I also have a washingmachine.

bathroom

Perhaps more about life in this Home No.x some other time.

More about Norwegians

Some of you might know, but it rains here alot!
The only day I did not take a rainjacket to work, for one reason or another, it just had to rain cats and dogs exactly when I was leaving from work and had just signed out past the security guard ‏‒ what a luck!

First week was really rainy, and we had some thunderstorms as well ‏‒ which somehow affected our internet connections, as people say here. (Basically they did not work for couple of days). Then the second week it was raining probably every day but at different times. Here the rain just comes and goes, it might be cloudy for a while, but otherwise we have had plenty of sunshine and hot weather. And they say that this summer has been one of the greatest for ages.

But what does the weather has to do with me writing about Norwegians? Well, it seems like they don't think they get enough rain, since almost every backyard around here is being sprinkled by water each afternoon. I keep wondering myself why. Perhaps this mystery will unpuzzle after some weeks.

Another weird thing I witnessed today after work was that I saw a boy, perhaps around 10 years old, washing the wooden facade of the house with a garden water pipe. Do you wash your wooden houses?
And he was not playing, there was a whole infrastructure around this washing action; ladders and such. I was thinking whether this some sort of a step before they would start painting their house?* later edited: It was confirmed to me that people here wash their houses before starting to re-paint. Another step is also to add anti-fungus before painting.

Apparently the wooden houses here are painted approximately every 9 years. It is a long lasting process ‏‒ we are talking weeks here. Some like it others don't. Perhaps people should think positively about it: after those weeks they definitely know some karate movements! And secondly, perhaps that's why I had received a leaflet on my postbox offering help around the house, where the word painting was bolded.

I had a discussion with the owner of the house last weekend. He was painting the house when I came home from the blueberry forest. As he has been doing for couple of weeks now. I told I had been picking blueberries. He asked "What sort of berries are those?" I immediately realized he had not understood my pronounciation and tried this: "blooberries." And the response was: "aaa, blueberries! Well, soon it is going to be mushroom time. We go every year to pick cantarelle, and last year we picket 50 kg!"

Last week I heard at work how my foreign collegues told their experiences when they were looking for apartments here. A German told, that it was easy for her, since everyone trusts Germans; A Polish told that it was also easy for her since women from Eastern Europe are considered to be good at household chores and keeping the apartment clean. But the overall message of the discussion was that it is really hard to get through the selection of candidates, and sometimes it helps if you belong to these special groups, where the landlady would immediately consider you as the best candidate. I wonder what they say about Finns and Slovenes?

I don't have any appropriate pictures here to add related to this post, so you can enjoy the view which I do every morning and afternoon:

The blueberry forest

I kept my promise and went to pick blueberries this weekend. I was superoptimistic that I would  come back home with some 4–5 litres of blueberries but barely collected 3. I even had a project during the week to empty an ice cream box, so I could reach that target of mine (since I'm lacking boxes at home). Even though I ate ice cream every evening ever since I bought the package, there was still half left this morning.  At least now I can eat ice cream with blueberries!

The location I had chosen to go was something I spotted last weekend on my trip to Oslo. Not every forest here is a blueberry forest, and this was the first one I saw so far. It has became my favourite place around here, and I think I will be spending lots time there in the coming months. It is little more than 10 km from home on a higher ground with pine trees, spruce trees, and also some deciduous trees. On the ground you can find blueberries, lingonberries (not ripe yet, nor even flowering), common cow-wheat (Melampyrum pratense/kangasmaitikka/navadni črnilec) and heather (Calluna vulgaris/kanerva/jesenska vresa) among other typically associated plant species in that plant community (phytocenosis).

The forest was also full of paths. But only one was really accessible with bicycle–it being wide enough, without guarantee it would be drivable. On the map I could see from the tracking application I use on my phone (Maverick) that all the paths in the forest were shown with the same classification–no distinguish was made between the bigger and smaller paths, which is actually what I'm doing back home for thesis from geography–to create such a map which does classify paths in a forest according their sizes.

I end up picking blueberries quite close to the path, simply because I did not know what should I do with my bike, and secondly I did not feel like carrying my big skiing backpack in the squatting position commonly used when picking blueberries. So I kept my eyes on my belongings while providing meals to hungry mosquitoes. But it was worth it! I'm a forest person; basically grew up playing in the forests building shelters and swimming in dark-watered forest lakes.

At the end of my not-that-successful picking, I took a long tour in the forest following the "main"path. The path was actually not that long, it got together with the actual main path quite fast just making a short loop around a hill. The path was full of roots and rocks of all sizes and shapes, sometimes also mud. And I could not help myself noticing how I had been picking blueberries in a totally wrong spot; everywhere I looked all the blueberries were much bigger and plentiful. So I stopped every now and then and picked a handful of antioxidant-rich berries, which is probably why I never even had to open my sandwich I had packed with me.

But I did not stop only because of the blueberries. I was mesmerized by the beautiful landscape that reminded me of the forest near my grandparents place–also a blueberry forest. The pictures I took will never tell the story I saw with my yes and heart, especially since they are taken with my phone– in which I don't know how to change setting so it could capture the light as I see it landing on the spots that I have chosen to share with you.

I was not in a hurry to get back home. It was also not too hot that I would have had to hurry due the blueberries I was carrying. So I took a longer tour back home, checking out couple of "lakes" I spotted with my map application. The first one was just under a hectare big, where as the second one was 1,5 ha. Both of them had some local people enjoying the warm day, either in the water or along the shores (one girl even had a hammoc). These lakes were really dark. The humus content (organic matter) is high in such lakes coloring them dark. The humus leaches from the surrounding soils and gives the water brownish color as well as acidic pH.

Last but not least my Saturday trip to the blueberry forest fulfilled my long lasting desire to spend a whole day in a forest similar to my childhood, with the only company being the mosquitoes.

PS. And I even found some wild rasberries.

Bike trip to Oslo

I have successfully tested my bike with a Sunday tour to Oslo.
The bike tour I made was some 50 km. I did not take the shortest, nor the easiest way, which I was sometimes struggling with, due to all the uphills and downhills, but at the end of the day I'm happy, but tired.

The highlights of my trip were not in Oslo, but on the way there. The first one was a little less than 1 ha sized swampy landscape with a dark pond in the middle. The second highlight was, after I had struggled my way up one country side gravel road on top of a hill (where I by the way immediately once entered the forest road, got attacked by mosquitoes ‒ which made me to go as fast as I could to trace them away) just to find out the road on the top, which was suppose to be my "shortcut" was closed due construction work. This would have meant that I had to take either a road down on my left or right, or go back where I came from ‒ in all the cases needing to cycle some extra 5 km to end up to the same place where my planned shortcut would take me. Not forgetting the mosquitoes, of course. It turned out, that a little Slovenian spirit had followed me, and after checking that no-one was around I bravely cycled the road-under-construction part, which was by the way only 100 meters. Just the "no-driving-here"- sign made the Finnish part of me unsure whether I should or should not enter, although it looked safe and drivable gravel.

I was happy I did, because on the other side there was a different type of forest waiting for me. A blueberry forest! I though the time was not yet, since in Finland the blueberries where still green (where as in Slovenia, the season is still ongoing ‒ I suppose?) At that point I had cycled only some 40 minutes, but a little blue snack was welcome. I figured out this is where I should come next weekend, but with some boxes to collect more than what one can eat at once.

The third highlight was next to a busy road. I guess it was some sort of a tourist farm, what I saw form the sign after passing it. But it was so idyllic! There were even two horses grazing.


Other things I saw were some pretty houses, Oslo at fast glance, and perhaps worth of mentioning; lots of begging immigrants.

So idyllic!

Schweigaards gate plantings

Askerskus university hospital

Akershus fortress walls

Daeleneng gata

Karl Johans gate

Oslo Opera house

View to Oslo from Torshovdalen park

Toftesgate second hand open market

On the way to Oslo

View from Schweigaards gate

First impressions

People
All the indicators of happiness of life must be right, when placing Norway in such high ranking. People actually seem happy! Everyone is smiling at work and seem to be enjoying what they do.
They are also very kind, helpful and beautiful.

Landscape

Country side

I am located near Oslo, where the landscape is similar to Finnish landscapes; plant species and cultivated crops somehow seem familiar. So far I have only seen white/beige colored cows though, where as the idylic Finnish landscape would have black and white cows – at least in my memory.
There is though more open space and hills.
There aren't also that many lakes around.

Mostly red

Built up landscape

In a village

I just heard yesterday what is the national sport of Norwegians at summer time: painting their houses. The houses are in deed almost without any exception wooden. And it seems like many of my neighbours are actively participating on such activities. The houses are relatively small (if I compare to the Slovenian ones), but I guess normal sized when compared to Finnish ones. Two floor type building prevail.
Even the construction site barracks are wooden!

Also red

Cycling is made easy; there are sideways along the roads, at least around where I live, so you don't have to cycle on the roads. The side way might though be only on one side of the road, so extra care must be taken for pedestrian traffic. The drivers behind wheels are very generous. They stop immediately when you show any sign that you want to cross the road.

Language
I guess all those years of mandatory Swedish at school has finally come into real use.  I can understand some basic things and follow the topic of discussions. Although at work we have very international mixture of people, so I don't hear Norwegian all the time. I do understand when they ask me in the grocery store whether I want a bag (pusse) and a receipt (btw. they don't automatically print the receipt).

Today I just found a Norwegian text book from the book shell and took it home to study it. I read the first 20 pages and understood everything except 3 new words (of course there were many more new words, but so similar to Swedish, that I knew them). Everyone asked me on my first day whether I am planning on learning Norwegian, and before today my answer was always "no" (about that some other time). But now when I see how simple it is, I don't think it will interfere with my current collection of active languages, so why not give it a try, but without any pressures.

I have to find the CD that came with the book, since hearing the correct pronounciation is important. Although there were not that many exceptions listed.

Groceries
Just an hour ago or so I returned from my fourth trip to the grocery store. I though I came home with 1 litre of plain jugurt, but once I opened  the package I figured out it was souer milk. I was standing in front of the jugurts for quite some time, and was trying to find just natural jugurt in 1 litre packaging, and it did not look as if they had it at all. There was a collection of same size packages of jugurt mixed with all sorts of berries, but no clearly plain jugurt. So I knew already when I grab the one which most resembled by name and packaging a planin jugurt and hoped it was the one I wished for. But luckily I like souer milk as well.

Home made oat bread

Otherwise it is quite easy to shop. Some items have even labels in Finnish!
But it is soooo expensive! Approximately 2 bags of basic groceries, which I needed to start filling my fridge, freezer and closets cost some 80€. So what I did was I bought couple of kilos of root vegetables (e.g. carrots, celery, swede..) chopped them for one afternoon and prepared them for the freezer. I also bough bigger packages of meat and packet them as well etc. You get the point. So now I probably won't have to do any grocery shopping for few weeks, other than few fresh things every now and then. A nice surprise was that salmon is actually cheap here, the price starting from 88 NOK onwards per kilo. Makes sense.

There seem to be some famous Norwegian nutritian who has her name all over the packages. Just like some Jamie Oliver in UK, here they have Tina, who seem to know how to market her expertise.

I will attach some pictures at some point – once it will stop raining, as it has so far every time I came from work. You will probably see some yellow fields of rape, the neighbours cows, some pretty wooden houses. And we will see where and what I will end up taking pictures of on my planned weekend cycling trip to Oslo.