Station to Station
They say the signs of the Zodiac are changing. And if it be true, then let it be so. For I’d fall into the realm of the Age of Aquarius.
And if the moon bears any indication - the stars would simply fall from the sky before shining outside of this window with more changes in mood than the Chinese Zodiac.
God, the irritated manner that some people would shift to simply on the grounds that you hand them a spoon rather than a fork. And I mean this in the most literal of translation.
So the world around us is melting. A wintery blanket that lasted for nearly a week is approaching its end as temperatures rise above freezing for the first time tomorrow sometime after sunrise. I guess I’m ready as I will be. But there was a time not so long ago in a place not so nearby when things were frozen over and the world didn’t simply stop but rather went on like the inner wheel of a town buried within a snow globe.
And I guess that’s where I’m going with this. Back yet to a time when things were a little better. Back yet to the last week of the year before I’d become so embittered with my nihilistic view than I can barely speak without wanting to scream out obscenities to anyone that thinks anything here matters.
* * *
Kyle took us to Marta. And I already mentioned how that went. Danny doubling over in the seat across from me in back of the train feeling sick to his stomach. I just stared ahead and rolled the video recorder. We had agreed to bring the Flip camera and document the trip beings that it was our first trip to Europe and all and one only gets one shot at experiencing such things. I say first trip but I assumed it was Danny’s 2nd considering that he’s told me ages ago that he spent time with his father in the 3rd grade in Spain. He never mentioned memories of this trip and now I realize why when he revealed in the plane after taking our seats that it was simply a lie to compete with Aaron’s pompous sense of accomplishments. For four years now I had believed he’d been to Spain when, in fact, he’s never been further than New York City or Puerto Rico to the South.
I shouldn’t be so naïve considering he’s never mentioned his father and I have my doubts that they ever met beyond infancy. He seems ashamed (his mother tells me that his father is black) of his partial heritage and is verbally averse to any sort of contact with Cecil to whom he bears the middle name. Nilsa only mentions that his father was “a nice man” which explains a part of Danny’s personality and that he was “lighter skinned than Danny”. Danny has told me that his father is white and Jordanian. To that I can add no validity.
For some reason, I was a oddly shocked -as though the lie mattered somehow- but simultaneously captivated that we would be united in our first time European experience.
This was Friday morning, December 24th. The Eve before Christmas.
The plane ride wasn’t a wholly satisfying one - I really can’t say I’d been comfortable flying in ten years or so what with the quality of American jets these days. It did offer free wifi and was consequently the only plane coming or going that did so; I didn’t take advantage of the offer. The only thing memorable was a crying child that I was praying would not be taking a certain flight to Amsterdam.
We flew into Detroit - which I had never been and snapped a video of the bright red train which passed overhead. It wasn’t a particularly long flight from Atlanta or a particularly long layover. We took advantage of the timing to phone Wells Fargo, our bank to alert them we’d be traveling overseas so avoid any freezes upon our accounts.
I had a delightful and most peculiar experience on the phone with the representative. He just so happened to be Norwegian. He told me that “it’s a different kind of cold. You won’t be prepared. You guys will probably have to buy a coat once you get there.” He also told me a few other useful tips and was probably the most pleasant person I’d ever banked with. He sounded young and attractive and I’m pretty sure he was blonde with blue eyes though I certainly didn’t ask. Danny got off the phone with a completely different experience altogether. His representative was neither helpful or friendly. It was already turning to be a great trip for me at least.
If I should rewind a bit. We each withdrew $200 from our accounts at the bank and oddly enough the teller I had spoken to was from Europe. He was extremely friendly and helpful and wished me a good trip. Coincidently, upon our arrival back home over a week later, I went to the bank to deposit Nilsa’s rent check and got the same teller. “I thought you were leaving for Norway?” He could tell by my attitude that I was sad. “Yes, people in America don’t really know how to live. They’ve forgotten that life isn’t all about money.” I agreed, he expressed his condolences and bid me good day.
Danny had shaken his hangover by this time and though we were both tired for only solidly sleeping for a bout 3 or 4 hours, we were simultaneously excited for the trip. Boarding the Delta flight to Amsterdam from Detroit was the largest jet I had ever been on. There were three rows of seats with two on opposite ends of the plane and six in the middle row of seats. This allowed for better comfort and privacy as we didn’t have to worry about sharing our space with anyone.
The flight was not so bad though I had mistakenly expected that there would be MUCH more leg room. I basically sat awake for the better part of the 8 hour flight. It was not a crowded flight. Many seats of the jet were not even filled which is something you rarely see nowadays. I’m guessing it had something to do with the holiday - not everyone flies out on Christmas Eve. The sun set and the lights went out and much of the flight was in darkness. This is why I always prefer flying at night. It’s such a relaxing feeling to be soaring thousands of feet into the air with the lights off. I winked a few times but no serious sleeping. Danny slept on and off switching between his head on my shoulder and my lap. The flight attendants offered strange meal choices of Tortellini or chicken. I chose the chicken, Danny chose the tortellini. I had the biggest regret. But I was starved and ate every bite despite of the peculiar taste. We were informed several times by the flight crew that the televisions would not work so we were forced to listen to our iPods. Danny and I bought a splitter and listened mostly to Bat For Lashes who I had just about written off with the exception of “Daniel” which is the fan favourite anyway. It did make for a soothing ride but didn’t provide the soundtrack to Norway that I’d been searching for to commemorate the trip.
I wish I could say we consumed copious amounts of drugs in Amsterdam. I wish I could report that we sat in a coffee shop and sipped on strong lattes while nibbling hash brownies but really all that I could report is our custom’s experience.
Schiphol airport was pretty huge. We walked for what seemed like forever on conveyer belts that lead us from station to station. Rather than take suitcases, we decided to buy huge camping backpacks that allowed for easy transport better convenience considering we didn’t have to check our luggage. The backpack wasn’t the problem but the carry-on which contained the Macbook was burning a rope burn onto my shoulder. Danny carried an Urban Outfitters bag with Marita’s present (a GA state snuggie) but swore he would help me with my electronic burden (my computer, his Nintendo Ds, our adapters and converters, two large headphones and wall chargers, etc) on the way back home.
Customs in Europe seems much more reposed than North America. The lines were long but it seemed they had a much more jaded attitude than across the seas where things appear much more militant and rigid.
I was nervous, nonetheless, worried that I would be asked about my visit when I had never met Marita and couldn’t even remember her last night.
“Hmm Norway, eh?” STAMP. “Have fun. Next!”
Wow. That was it? I was certainly worried for nothing. I walked thru the scanners and kind of stood in front of the security guard who frisks the passengers when he just nodded and sent me along to the end of the conveyer belt to collect my things. This isn’t quite so bad at all. And I didn’t even have to remove my shoes. I did have my contact solution confiscated at this point which kind of irritated me but I held my tongue.
Minutes later I turn and notice Danny getting a severe pat down. “I think you were just racially profiled,” I tell him.
Then he tells me at the counter he was asked a barrage of questions: “Where are you going? Why are you going there? When will you return? Where is your return ticket? Next time have it printed. How much money are you taking? Do you have credit cards?” The complete third degree.
Still my experience was shaping up to be a good one.
I lost track of exactly what intervals I video recorded during the trip but I did snap some photos of the inside of the airport.
We made it to our terminal gate in time. It was dark out but dawn was around the corner. It was a KLM city hopper that we would board next for the hour and a half flight to Oslo and I was expecting it to be a tuna can with wings. We had quite a scare when boarding didn’t being until ten minutes before the flight was scheduled to take off. For anyone accustomed to flying in the United States this is a very strange occurrence indeed considering boarding usually begins a half hour to 45 minutes before any given flight is scheduled to take off. This lead us to believe that perhaps we were on the wrong flight but both of us were too tired to bother asking the personnel behind the counter and simply followed our intuition hoping that the boarding passes had displayed the correct gate number.
It seemed already Europe was proving to move at a much slower pace than at home. No one is in a rush for anything.
The so-called city hopper offered more leg room than both of the American flights we had been on that evening despite being a much smaller jet in size. We entered to the sounds of a wailing baby and a very attentive flight attendant: “There, there would some milk help?” she went away and a moment later came back with a bottle of milk. “It’s a little cool, room temperature. I hope that’s okay.” I nudged Danny “did she just ask those people if they wanted milk for their baby?” I was astonished. I had never, in all of my times flying seen a flight crew so attentive to peoples needs. They were friendly without being fake and seemed to work hard at making you comfortable. One of the flight attendants even asked a man if he wanted help with his luggage. I chuckled when thinking of the story Alissa said once when she flew from Indianapolis to Atlanta. With her 4’11” frame she couldn’t chuck her luggage in the overhead bin and when she asked an attendant for help he scoffed and told her “uh, I don’t get paid for that.”
Later that day Marita told us the change of attitude is more or less correlated to the amount flight attendants get paid in Europe. There it’s a high-end job with a massive waiting list. Here it’s a job that pays very poorly and probably only offers discounted flights as its greatest perk.
The food was delicious and cute. Coming in a little box. It was some kind of bagel with cheese. They offered a meal. A snack. And two rounds of drinks. The flight was only an hour and a half. In America for that amount of time you get a bag of peanuts and a drink. Nothing more, nothing less. I really couldn’t believe it. We took photos of our cute little Coca Cola cans because everything is smaller in Europe.
This was Saturday morning. Christmas Day December 25, 2010.
The sun in Norway rises at 9am and sets at 3:30/4pm. This was the strangest thing to get used to. We touched down into beautiful terrain judging from our window view in the plane during the descent. Beautiful fjords and forest covered in thick layers of glistening white snow. It was gorgeous. The was just starting to rise. Not wanting to mooch off of Marita for New Years, we stopped in the duty free store for a bottle of vodka. Alcohol, as with everything else in Norway, we would soon discover was very, very expensive. A bottle of Smirnoff, for instance would run you $50 US dollars - the price we reserve for our high-end brands like Grey Goose.
So we began Christmas morning, at a time when most children are opening their gifts from Santa, with purchases of Beefeater Gin and Vodka.
Customs was a completely different experience here. We approached a counter where an old man sat who looked as though we had woken him with our arrival. “What do we do?” Danny whispered to me. I approached the old man cautiously “do we, uh, have to check in with you?” He croaked sleepily “do you have anything to declare?” “Uhhh, no?” I said sheepishly as I held onto my newly-purchased bottle of vodka. “go there” he pointed and we followed a hallway down to the exit which was really cute but not written in English.
Marita greeted us with a smile. She seemed lovely right off the bat but slightly annoyed that she had to wait on us a half hour. “I took my mother’s van because I didn’t know if you guys would have big suitcases that wouldn’t fit into my car. You guys have only backpacks.”
And so began our Christmas Day in a car ride thru the Norwegian countryside from the airport.
I noticed snow everywhere. And tunnels. Norwegians love tunnels. Marita chuckled at one point when she noticed me snapping photos. “Do you guys not have tunnels in America?” “Not many,” Danny responded.
We stopped at a gas station where we picked up deodorant and I had probably the worst experience of the trip with a luggish gas attendant who refused to speak to me in English. Also, the key pad for my debit card wasn’t in English and there was no green button indicating OK so I didn’t know what button to press or what the screen was prompting me for. Had it been even a day later I would have felt bold enough to ask Marita but we hadn’t really broken the ice yet and I didn’t want to feel like an idiot asking her to I closed my eyes and pressed the button right button. Transaction went thru. “That guy was rude to you,” she said as we left the station. “He could have spoken to you in English. You have to realize though, people here won’t tell you ‘hello’ unless they know you.” Lesson learned.
She warned us that her hometown “smelled like fart” due to a paper factory near the downtown area that belts the putrid aroma from huge smoke stacks. And before going home she lead us on a grande tour of Moss which I thought to be absolutely perfect. I couldn’t get over the roundabouts and the amount of snow. And the picturesque harbour for Moss lies on the edge of the North Sea. My first impression of Norway was that it was quaint and beautiful. The type of seaside landscape you’d want to paint if you possessed that talent or the type of place you’d want to settle if you had the choice. It was like the set of a movie. She parked and we sat perched a ledge while I snapped photos of the old factory. “it was nearly shut down a year or so ago. But they managed somehow to work their way out of a financial crisis and stay open. My boyfriend Tom works there.”
“I’m going to prepare you a traditional Norwegian breakfast.” And so we went to her place - a small yet humble one-bedroom apartment with a living room that housed a sectional wrap-around sofa.
We dined on fresh bread and red peppers and shrimp & liver spreads, and goat cheese. It was delicious but very different from anything we’re accustomed to eating aside from finger-foods at party.
We got our first taste of Freia, a brand of Norwegian chocolate as well as Fox (a lemon candy) and Toblerone while sipping on really strong cups of coffee served in cute little cups that were not offered with cream or sugar but rather taken black.
By this time I was exhausted and though she offered her bed seeing me doze off on the sofa while they caught up on old times, I refused and simply slept on and off the remainder of the afternoon.
Danny kept poking and prodding me irritatingly trying to get me up. “Quit being mean, Danny” I heard her say at one point. He must have said good things about my character as I slept because she regarded me in a favourable light as though she had known me for ages.
We visited with her mother and stepfather who had a small cot they were lending us for sleeping purposes. Their house, like all of the ones we’d seen in Norway was small but beautiful on the inside. Beautiful to a magazine quality degree. Her mother, Mona and stepfather, Tom spoke broken English but were very warm and inviting. They gave us the grande tour of the house, including the upstairs loft and Tom offered Danny and I a shot of Aquavit - a repulsive potato vodka that burned holes in our throats as though swallowing gasoline. They were generous though and before we left, she filled up a box with homemade sweets and invited us for New Years dinner on Thursday night as well as extending an open invite for a party they were throwing the next evening with friends.
Back at her home, she prepared a homemade pizza for us with dough from scratch. It was fantastic and if pizza is made this good, this easily, I wonder why we bother with the nasty frozen stuff. In fact, it’s being in Norway with all of the home-cooked meals that inspired me to come back to my kitchen with a different fervor. I’ve made two homemade pizzas since the trip to Moss.
Eating out, considered a convenience here, is a luxury in Norway due to the costs. So EVERYONE there cooks. You get a sense that people here really appreciate good, healthy food.
Being the gracious hostess that she was, Marita said she was throwing a small welcoming party for us. So out came the Paprika chips & ranch dip as well as the Swedish cheese puffs. Her friend, Christine Pham arrived - she was one of the loveliest people I had ever met. Soon after Renate had come and we all chilled to music and sipped on Gløgg which is basically red wine with some kind of mull spice which is heated over the stove and served warm during holidays. Danny didn’t care for it but Marita and I nearly finished the entire pot ourselves. It was soooo good.
My jet lag was kicking in sometime after midnight in a big way. The day ended perfectly but I could barely fake keeping my eyes open much less interest in any topic of conversation. I drifted in and out of consciousness while sitting on the sofa holding my cup of warm wine. Renate left first and we practically chased Christine out who had to wait on her boyfriend to pick her up. Looking back I felt horrible and eventually apologized on Facebook when we got back home. She was hardly concerned and said she didn’t feel as though we were rushing her out at all.
My jet lag took ahold of me and did not let go until well after sunlight. It was after noon the next day when the house would finally begin to stir….
Back home, Christmas Day would mark the first snow of the season...