Sandra as a Saetre: July 2009

Three weeks ago, my friend Emily came to visit Norway! We went to UNC together, studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain together, and then she lived on Ellicott St. with me in DC for a year after college. She works in international development and was traveling to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for work, and was able to stop by Norway on her way home. I was so so happy!

She flew into Oslo and I took a train to meet here there. Her flight got in late and I spent the afternoon/evening in Oslo waiting to meet her. I had been in Oslo before but really enjoyed walking around the city, and it was refreshing to be in a bigger, more diverse city. They have a beautiful waterfront and a harbor, the national palace, parks, and a big commercial, pedestrian area. They also have drug problems and, especially near the train station, there are a lot of people using drugs on the streets and it's pretty depressing and dirty. In Bergen, the people who use drugs are confined to one park in the city, but in Oslo they are out on the streets and always in plain sight. It's really shocking to see, I have seen people injecting heroine in the park in Bergen, and everyone knows, and the police and authorities do nothing about it. But anyway, that is out on the streets in Oslo which really takes away from the city.

So I got to Oslo and checked into our hostel and walked around to the waterfront and through some of the parks. I sat on a restaurant on a big boat and ate mussels and watched all of the bustle of the marina around me. There were beautiful waterfront apartments and communities there and I daydreamed about living in one of those apartments and having a boat in the harbor and a restaurant on the waterfront. I spent the rest of the day walking around and then went to meet Emily. We had set up plans and back up plans and back up plans for our back up plans to meet at the train station. We finally ran into eachother and it was so exciting to see a friend from home in Norway! She had traveled 24 hours to get to Norway and, needless to say, was exhausted. I forced her to walk to the waterfront and get a glimpse of Oslo as we were leaving first thing in the morning.

We had my favorite iced coffee and raisin/cardamom buns for breakfast as we walked to the train station, which looked much cleaner and safer in the morning. We hopped on a train that went to Myrdal, a town high up in the mountains that is part of a tourist trip called, "Norway in a Nutshell" which is practically what we did, but not as part of the package. From Myrdal we took a very small, tourist train to Flam. This train ride is the highest altitude train ride between two cities in Europe and is beautiful. You start high up in snow covered mountain tops and go down through mountains and tunnels, with lots of waterfalls, into the valley where there are beautiful little towns. At one point the conductor comes on and warns us about singing women mountain fairies who come out and try to lure people into the mountains. 5 minutes later we stop at a waterfall and this really cheesy, mermaid comes out and sings to everyone from the waterfall. It was pretty lame.

Then we got down to Flam and boarded a ferry to take us for 4 hours back to Bergen. It's a beautiful boat trip through the fjords with waterfalls, snow covered mountains, and villages. Along the trip Emily and I met a really typical backpacker who hung out with us for the trip and talked our ears off! He asked so many questions that were nothing more than prompts for his own stories. Here is the best example: I told him that I was going to this small restaurant north of Barcelona that my friend Rick had heard about. After telling him a bit about the restaurant, he said he was interested in going and asked that I write down the information about it for him. I wrote the name of the restaurant and town down. He asked me if I knew how far it was from Barcelona. I told him I thought it was about two hours north of Barcelona. He says, "Oh, I'm sorry, do you know how long it would take on horseback?" Seriously. Because then he launched into a story about how a "mate" of his who he met traveling lived near Barcelona on a horse ranch and asked him to come break in horses, as he was trained in that, so he would only be traveling by horseback. He asked us our worst three injuries to tell us about his skiing accident in the Alps, showed us video on his phone of him taking his helicopter pilot test, and tried to avoid telling us he was going to Harvard because, "people always treat him differently once they know". I realize I am being harsh, but it was hilarious and frustrating at the same time, and I feel like such a stereotype of traveling Europe.

Once arriving to Bergen we walked around the city a bit and then went to meet friends at the rooftop of their apartment building where Emily was shocked by how light it was, and I realize I had forgotten how different that is. We had a great night out with my Swedish coworkers. The next morning we went out for coffee and found the cutest coffee place that will hopefully one day be the model for Emily's coffee shop in Maine!

While Emily was here we hiked up Ulriken, the tallest mountain in Bergen. We also went to eat at Cornelius and got to listen to Alf's welcome speech about shellfish and share a kilo of shrimp and mussels. We walked around the city and I showed her my favorite places. Halfway through her time here, Rick came and they got to spend a day bonding while I was at work. We all three hung out at the house with my cousin one night and went fjord swimming, which they told me they had to do before they left, and another night cooked a feast at the house for some friends, including a massive whole fish, bean salad, and mussels. We took evening walks over to Alvoen, the old factory town near by and just had a fantastic time! It was so so nice to have a friend from home and I had a great week playing tourguide of this city I love!

Here are some pictures!

I arrived in Oslo:

An adorable restaurant/cafe on a boat in the harbor:

Some of the apartments I daydreamed about living in:

The Oslo harbor:

Where I sat and had mussels

Emily in Norway! I wasn't allowed to take pictures her first night, due to the 24+ hours of traveling...

Right after seeing the cheesy mermaid:

Boat trip

Emily, me, and the Norwegian flag! We both were obsessed with the idea of pictures with this flag in it, I have about 50 of them

Snow covered mountains, a short stop of the ferry ride, and the Norwegian flag, again

Arriving in Bergen

This insane yacht that was parked in Bergen for about a week, it is one of the 3 biggest yachts in the world, owned by a Russian businessman, that looks like Apple designed a boat, we called it the iYacht.

Emily and me downtown, with Floyen in the background

A view from the rooftop, at midnight!

A view in the other direction

Where we sat on the rooftop

The same boat the next day, it's impossible to capture the size in a picture, but it was overwhelming and completely unnecessarily large.

Bryggen

Outside of the famous coffee shop "Den Lille Kaffekompaniet"

Emily at USF, outside of the glassblowing shop.

Emily being creative and artsy, taking a picture in my euro-glasses, of her beer and the fjord.

Sitting at Cornelius in the sun, with our welcome drinks, eagerly awaiting our meal!

The boat again at night... that back part swings down and releases a smaller boat, and I have heard the yacht has its own submarine as well...

When Emily was still here, she was joined by another American! Rick, the sous chef at BlackSalt, the restaurant I worked at in DC, and a very great friend of mine, came to visit Bergen from Spain, where he was living at the time.

Rick was really interested in seeing Cornelius and checking out our fresh seafood, the kitchen, and meeting Alf. First he spent some time in Bergen looking at everything in the fish market and the harbor. Then, he, Emily, and I bought ludicrous amounts of food and a huge whole fish from the market to make dinner for ourselves and some friends and family. We brought everything home and Rick spent two hours preparing the stuffing for the whole fish, a fantastic bean salad, some roasted potatoes, and a homemade aioli. It was delicious and such a treat for all of us! It really made me miss our BlackSalt staff feasts...

The next day I took Rick up Floyen and we spent time in downtown Bergen. We met a friend for some blueberry picking in the woods nearby my house and a long walk past some farms with Norwegian cows and sheep. It was a very typical Norwegian countryside afternoon.

Sunday! The day of our boat trip! Alf and his daughter, Karianne, had been telling me for weeks that we were going on a boat trip on Sunday with some family members down south to Tyssnes, where Karianne's family owns a lot of land. Rick was here during that time so he got invited to come along for the boat trip. We had absolutely no idea what we were in for, but it ended up being one of the most amazing days!

We had bought food in town for the trip and spent the morning packing and getting ready (Rick could barely sleep the night before because he was so excited!) We all met down at the boathouse and got on Alf's boat. It was Alf, his 19 year old daughter Karianne, her boyfriend Andreas and her friend Malin, Alf's son Stian who I live with, his daughter Gitte who lives next door and her 8-year old daughter Sofia and fiancee Arild, our cousin Tracy, another cousin Helge (they both work at Cornelius) and Rick and me. So we were 12, and our dog Hero. We set off with beautiful weather and everyone was really excited. We stopped for gas and snacks along the way at a very crowded boat gas station and continued south. The trip was gorgeous, we could see snow-covered mountains, passages out to the North Sea, and oil rigs! The water was crystal clear and Rick and I were in heaven sitting out on the bow of the boat watching the land go by and eating fresh Norwegian melon and berries.

Once we got closer we went into a very small inlet and before I realized the boat had stopped moving Alf was over my head jumping off the roof of the boat into the fjord, quickly followed by his 8 year old granddaughter Sofia. They swam for a bit, Arild and the dog got in as well, and then got back on the boat before the current took us too close to the shore and we were off again. We stopped like this a few more times as Sofia kept begging to jump in the water. She was fearless, diving 15-20 feet off the top of the boat into the fjords. There was music playing and she would stand on the roof of the boat dancing like an Egyptian and then leap into the water to swim with her grandfater. Alf took us through some other inlets and we finally tied up on a small island and took a short hike. Apparently there was an old English prince who kidnapped his young (11-year old) niece and took her to this small Norwegian island that they owned. He kept here there and we walked through the remains of their house and her small playhouse that still had an old miniature oven and kitchen set inside it. It was very very creepy, and my family members told us this incestuous story as we walked through the island.

We got back on the boat and went into a small inlet where we tied to a rock. Alf used to be a shellfish farmer in this part of Norway and we could see all the fences he had built and the leftovers from his oyster farms. We walked through a shallow and shell filled stream to another part of the fjord that was relatively cut-off from everything else. The water was so warm and clear and we all swam there for about half an hour. It was incredible. We followed Alf over to the bank and swam down where he told us to and pulled living oysters off of the rocks. There were hundreds of these huge oysters that had been living in this place for many many years. So we all picked as many oysters as we could swim back with and made our way back to the boat. Along the walk Rick and I picked up lots of clams and more oysters. We had quite the haul by the time we got back to the boat. Sofia had found a small crab and gave it to Alf for one of his tricks. Alf took this living crab, a little smaller than my hand, and put it in his mouth backwards so it couldnt pinch him. Once everyone was watching him, and had their cameras out, he bit right through the shell and ate the back half of the living, moving crab. Everyone loved it and was so shocked! While he still had everyone's attention, he turned to Rick with the rest of the crab and said, "alright American chef, want to taste some fresh Norwegian crab?" Rick obviously couldn't say no, so he ate half of the rest of the crab, which was 3 legs, a claw, and a quarter of the body. We all loved it! I was so proud, and Alf was just beaming!

We untied and set off to our final destination. Along the way we saw a beautiful white sand beach so we stopped for some more swimming and to eat what we had collected. So Alf got his oyster knife and started opening all the oysters and feeding them to everyone. They were amazing. The ones we had picked in the lagoon were so big and so old. The more typical Norwegian oysters were rounder, flatter, and more delicate, but still delicious. The biggest one we found, Alf thought it was at least 30 years old and it was the size of my fist. It was reserved for Rick and he ate the whole thing in one huge bite! Meanwhile, Sofia was testing her grandfather's limits and brought him a starfish to eat, which he ate about half of but said it didn't taste good. Then she brought him a jellyfish to eat, he took a huge bite out of it and started chewing it before he had to spit it out because he said it was burning his mouth and throat, and he said that one, "wasn't meant to be eaten". You think??

So we got kicked off the beach because apparently it was private property and the owners weren't too happy and we finally arrived to our destination, an island that Karianne is the sole inheritor of. We cooked a huge barbecue with food everyone had bought and sat and talked for a long time, did some more swimming, and relaxed. After dinner we walked up to the top of the island where Karianne's grandmother has a house from the 1700's and we had coffee and dessert. We first got a tour of the house which is practically the same from the 1700's and her great-great-grandfather made furniture so it was filled with beautiful old wooden furniture, old books, old pictures of the King and Queens of Norway, and all sorts of other incredible antiques. Karianne's mother gave us the tour, except for Alf's contribution, which was to point out the room in which Karianne was made!

We had a tour of the tool shed where all of the furniture and wood carving tools are kept, many of which could be in a museum, of the old kitchen with the iron pot and butter churner, and Alf started to cut the grass with their old scythe. It felt like we had all taken a time machine back 200 years. We then were served coffee, fruit salad, and a fantastic Norwegian apple cake that the grandmother made. We were all pretty exhausted by this point and headed back down to the boat, but not before Rick said "thousand thanks for a great evening" in Norwegian to the grandmother, she loved it!

The boat trip back was beautiful and Rick and I sat on the front of the boat and watched the sky changing colors and the water and mountains going by. The whole day was surreal and we couldn't thank everyone enough when we got back home.

The rest of Rick's time here couldn't compare to that trip, but I tried to show him a good time. He spent one night working in the kitchen at Cornelius to see what it was like and loved walking out to the shellfish tower to "catch" his own shellfish whenever there was an order. It was really fun having him at work.

Two nights later, our last night in Norway before we left for Spain, we returned to Cornelius to eat. We had a trout and lobster tartar, then the crab and seafood soup, and then a massive shellfish tower with scallops, langostines, mussels, shrimp, osyters, sea urchin, that we ate for a few hours. Our boat back to town left before we had time for dessert so our server, my co-worker, set us up with our dessert on the boat and it was perfect! We had a fantastic meal and went to town to get the bus to the airport for Spain.

Rick's visit was wonderful and it was so nice to share the food here with him.

Here are some pictures from the boat trip!

Rick on the boat: