Oslo to Ålesund to The Juvet Landscape Hotel - Day 2

"What day is it," asked Pooh. 
"It's today," said Piglet. 
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

There are a couple of things I am aiming to do every day while on vacation. The first is to do my physical therapy exercises. That might be a blog post itself at some point.

The second is to meditate. I recently took a course at work on energy levels and focus. One of the things I learned is to take time out of your day just for you. Take a break. An honest to God break. I downloaded the app "Calm" which has different guided meditation. This morning's meditation was based on Winnie the Pooh. Specifically, The Tao of Pooh (an excellent book that I've read a couple of times). Specifically, Wu Wei, the Taoist principle of "not doing". Letting your life take it's course without over thinking or over complicating it. If you haven't read The Tao of Pooh, you should go do that right now.

Waking up this morning was quite difficult, after having been up until midnight last night with the blog. It was totally worth it though! And starting the day by laying in bed, meditating to Pooh Bear, well, that was just the right medication for me.

So, at 7:30am our alarm went off and at 8:30am we had breakfast with Chuck and Dag. Breakfast was a typical buffet style with eggs, bacon, fruit juice, yogurt. Then there was the Scandinavian twist of brown cheese and different fish options like mackerel and kaviar (a spread that comes in a big tube), pickles, olives, liver pate, very pink salami other meats, cheeses and bread. There was instant coffee available as well. 

Side note here: One of our big treats back home is a fortnightly (bi-monthly / twice monthly) delivery of Blue Bottle coffee. It is one of the happiest times of our month, especially for Krista who has a penchant for good coffee. I won't say she can't function without coffee in the morning, but she is certainly MUCH happier WITH a cup in her hand first thing. So, we decided to treat ourselves on this trip and bring a bag of ground Blue Bottle coffee with a pour over coffee maker, so Krista could brew some guaranteed good coffee first thing in the morning. And there she was, like a barista-for-one, brewing her tasty coffee next to a plate of brown cheese (which has the consistency of a slice of peanut butter) and waffles with nutella. I was very proud. Treat Yo Self, girl!

After breakfast, we found out that Dag would be our tour guide for the day. Last night, Krista had mentioned a park she'd seen on Atlas Obscura - Go to this website and see what cool things are near you! First stop, Vigeland Park.

This park is full of visually stunning and controversial sculptures. Apparently, it is a story of life - beginning to end, representing also the challenges of life - general struggles of man, having children and fighting dragons...like you do. The women fair much better against dragons than the men. Guess we know how to handle ourselves.

I was completely in my element at this park. I love sculptures and I was not disappointed. (More photos to come for the below - Krista took some stunning photos that haven't copied to my tablet correctly)

Yes, there was a monolith of a pile of bodies.

After running around the park, we stopped a grocery store to see what fun food they have. We also grabbed some lunch before heading out on the metro to pick up our bags from the hotel. 

Jam that was promptly confiscated at the airport after we forgot it was in our carry on

After that, we took an Uber to the Opera house, where we were promised we could walk on the roof. We had no idea you wouldn't take stairs to get there. I don't know how else to explain it except the roof starts on ground level. SO AWESOME!

Krista giving it some scale

After the Opera House, we took a train with Chuck to the airport.

Thanks Chuck!

Then I got REALLY TIRED and passed out on the flight to Alesund. Krista took some amazing photos, which I will share later.

The Alesund airport was really cute. There is ONE baggage carousel and then you're outside.

We rented a car, stopped in Alesund city for lunch.

I thought pizza sounded nice, but accidentally ordered pizza with salted cod. Not my favorite pizza ever.

Then a two hour drive to our eco-hotel.

We arrived after dark and cannot wait to see the views! I'll fill you in about what so special with this hotel tomorrow. 

I can say that we are both blown away with Norway's beauty. The green, the nature, the water, hills, mountains, cliffs. It's shocking how gorgeous it all is. And we're pretty dang proud of ourselves for deciding to get out of the city and drive deep into the West. Getting away from it all. Taking in some stunning scenery. We're so happy...and so...so tired.

Good night for now. More tomorrow.

Oakland, CA to Oslo Norway (day 1)

Ah, yes. This again. I always forget the commitment of writing a blog while on a holiday. The part after the nine hour flight (with three hours sleep), followed by a walking tour and dinner, where all my body desires is a bed and sleep, but I owe it you myself and to YOU to write this blog. I'll sleep when I get home in 14 days! With that in mind, please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes or if I leave out parts of sentences or words.

This morning (Saturday Sept 16 in Berkeley) started with a last minute cleaning of the house, cleaning out the fridge, packing up and double checking lists. We dropped our cat, Isabel, off at Kate's house to have a little vacation of her own (she is not on board with this so far, but we're hoping she will loosen up over the next week or so).

Krista and I took a Lyft to Oakland airport and had full on belly laughs with our driver. She was seriously a riot! We ended up talking about a great movie/story idea which included "silly string hand" superpowers! I'm going to have to write that one day.

The line at the airport looked quite long, but actually zoomed by. The woman checking us in was also a jokester, suggesting that I start a fight with the airport sheriff ("a fat guy who would not chase you down") for not getting free upgrades to better seats. "I'm not starting stuff with a cop at an airport!" I do have boundaries after all.

We grabbed a bite to eat, in case the food was limited or lousy on the flight. Krista and I both called our folks for a last minute check up before boarding. And then our row was called and we made our way on the plane.

We were flying Norwegian Airlines in economy, row 8. The flight attendant greeting us was a handsome Spanish man (most of the crew seemed like they were based out of Barcelona and spoke Spanish to each other when asking for refills for the food cart, etc). He wore a uniform of a funky checked suit and vest (gray and black). It was the second best uniform (to me) after Virgin. Loved it.

So, we walk past first/business class and saw that our seats were in the back of a section, bulkhead behind us and before we got there, FEAR struck that we might not be able to recline. The distance between seats (side-to-side and to the seats in front of us) was tight, but we could recline (PHEW!) and there were some FANCY things. The touchscreen for movies/entertainment/ordering snacks was big and new. There was a 3D flight tracker, which was easy to navigate and beautiful to look at.

The windows seemed HUGE. Not only HUGE but there were no window shades. Instead there were dimmers! Like adjustable sunglasses.

It was amazing to see the sun coming up (while we were flying over Greenland)....and what's this?! The "smart lighting" in the plane matched the color and brightness of the sky outside. The greeting video mentioned all kinds of other cool features that help reduce jet lag and provide cleaner, fresher air for the flight. Overall, I loved the seat, the view and the screen.

When it came time to sleep, after a mediocre dinner of chicken and rice (but an awesome small jar of cake!), I slapped on my eye mask, reclined the seat and fell asleep for three solid hours. When I woke up, I noticed that I was sitting bolt upright. I reclined again, watched Arrival and slowly (imperceptibly slowly) my seat would incline to upright. It was the only real glitch of the flight and sort of funny after a while. I'd be like 3 inches from the screen in front of me, laugh at how ridiculous it was and recline again.

Krista and I also watched 1/2 of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which we discussed doing weeks ago. In it, he goes to Greenland and Iceland. We thought it would be cute.

Overall, there was very little turbulence and the flight was smooth. The flight attendants basically ignore you if you haven't purchased the food plan (which we had) but we found their focused attention, or lack there of to some customers, interesting.

So, about 15 minutes from landing, the pilot says, "If you take a look out the left side of the plane, you will see a nice view of Oslo." And boy was it. A crisp, surprisingly warm day. (PICTURE TO COME)

(((Fast forward through the typical customs story))) Krista's friends Chuck and Dag met us right outside customs and drove us to our hotel. Let me say that the drive from the airport to Oslo city was something like 40 minutes and I'm not always great in a car, so I had to pull over to get some fresh air and walk around. This led us on a brief but fascination driving tour of the East Side of Oslo. We saw the prison, the police station and Grønlund area (apparently it used to be a big area for migrants, but not so much anymore).

Finally, we reached the "Posh West side of Oslo" and arrived at the Smarthotel Oslo. Chuck recommended the hotel as one of the cheaper options in Oslo. We checked in, went to our room and laughed hysterically and how cute and small it was. Krista said, "It's like a train car." We loved it! We live in a small studio apartment and will only be staying here for one night, so the charm of an adorably small room was not lost on us.

We cleaned up, took impossibly brief naps and went on a walking tour with Chuck and Dag. I snapped a bunch of pictures. Hopefully, i can add captions later, because I'm SURE I won't remember what it was I was looking at. Theatres, Ibsen, Nobel Peace Prize, a castle and much much more were on the friend-tour, but my sleepy brain could not retain it. I will say, where we walked was flat (easy to walk) and beautiful. It is very safe and though the people might bump into you (personal space much?), it was so lovely!

Trolls, the're big here!

Then the boys took us to dinner at Akers Mek where we had salads and meatballs. "That's lingonberry sauce on the side," said Chuck. "Oh, I've BEEN to Ikea," replied Krista. The food was great. Even the salad had yummy grilled (and possibly caramelized) cheese.

Chocolate Fondan

After dessert, the boys had done their job as hosts and kept us up to a respectable hour (to avoid jet lag) and we walked home to the hotel.

Couple of quick thoughts before I pass out from exhaustion.

Today is Sunday (Sept 17 here in Oslo...it's been a long day!) and most stores are closed. Even grocery stores are closed all day. I seems like a throwback to a more religious time, where the gov't made it "wrong" to work on Sundays to people wouldn't feel pressured to choose between God and country.

Walking back at night, though the sky was dark, there was so much light. The buildings all seemed to have lights highlighting just how dang nice they looked. Or I was very tired and everything was hazy with euphoria.

And that's day one done! Tomorrow we meet up for breakfast at the hotel, which I have been told should be a heck of a spread! Then we're off to walk around town before taking the train back to the Oslo airport and flying to Alesund for the next part of our Norwegian adventures!

Teaser 2017

In three and a half weeks, Krista and I will head out on a great adventure. We're off to Norway and Iceland! In an attempt to go where very few people have gone before, we are intentionally avoiding tourist areas, bar one. Our hopes are high to spot some pretty great stuff and I'll be starting the blog back up again to take you with us!

Teaser: 

We are being brave, flying and driving to remote locations. One such place may (or may not) have been the birth place, so to speak, of a female AI.

Some places are too hard to get to in a rental car, so we've also reserved transport on one of these.

We're looking forward to these adventures and I hope you are too! Check back around September 18/19 for the first blog of the trip.

The Loneliest Road in America.

There's not a whole lot to say about today. I drove for nearly 6 hours on Highway 50 from Ely, Nevada to South Lake Tahoe. Around three hours in I started to lose my mind a little bit. My eyes got all funny and I felt dizzy. It's just too hard to drive so straight for so long with no distraction or anything. As much as I enjoyed not having traffic I don't think I will ever go on Highway 50 again.

One more night and then I go home. I wish I could leave early but I have an interview tomorrow online. Wish me luck.

Highway 50 the loneliest Road in America

I left my Hotel in Salt Lake City at noon. Usually, I wake up early and get on the road as soon as possible, but I knew it would take me four and a half hours to get to Ely, Nevada via Highway 50, so I would take my time in the morning. 

I had breakfast and coffee, I watch TV (Star Trek the Next Generation) and I just generally relaxed. It felt luxurious at the time. 

However, once I got on the road, I regretted my choice almost immediately. It was 96 degrees out and got up to 102 when I was out in the desert. My air conditioning was pretty much full blast all day. The road mirages were very long. It was like I was driving on a mirror. I had a makeshift curtain out of my flannel shirt, ensuring that I didn't get completely burnt and/or too hot. Also, because I was so lazy in the morning, I felt sluggish when I got in the car rather than alert. 

There was a lot of traffic in downtown Salt Lake City and on the first two highways, but as soon as I turned off onto Highway 15 I felt so much better. "This is more like it," I thought. A two lane road, one lane going in each direction. Then I turned onto Highway 50 and within four miles I thought, "I get it. I get why this is The Loneliest Road in America." It is a two lane desert road that stretches on for eternity. There was no one in front of me as far as I could see and only a tiny speck of a person behind me. 

I voice recorded this while driving, "I have 142 miles to go on this road. A two hour drive. I feel like its Interstate 5 going from the Bay Area to LA. Straight as an arrow. I could see someone of a different personality feeling anxious about this drive. The monotony, the desolation might make someone a little loopy. But it's 101 degrees out and I couldn't be happier for the road I've chosen. I added an hour to my trip to go this way and I accept every minute of it graciously." I appreciated not having anyone else on the road with me because I could set my cruise control and just do that. Cruise. It was very nice. Every hour or so you come across a big hill. The speed limit changes to 35 miles an hour and becomes curvy. That is also nice. It breaks up the monotony. 

I stopped at a gas station right on the Utah/Nevada border. It was the only thing I'd seen for at least 60 miles. It was plopped in the middle of the desert. I thought it was just a gas station and then I walked in to pay. I was in the middle of a convenience store then there was a casino and a restaurant and a hotel. Crazy little place. I sort of felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

And then I hit the final stretch to Ely. It was just like the last however many miles. Straight, desert, hot, little bit boring. But when I got to Ely, the hotel more than made up for it. It is a quirky little place and I love a bit of that.

The next five pictures are in the Business Center