Leaving the Hammer

We left Lillehammer on Monday, the day after visiting the wonderful Maihaugen, otherwise known as the Norwegian Folk Museum. I confess to not exactly understanding why it is called a folk museum, unless it’s kind of their way of saying “Hey, this museum, it’s about Norwegian folk!”

So-called folk museums I have visited in the past seemed to contain a lot of raggedy furniture, and freaky straw-stuffed dolls with no eyes.

This museum was not like that at all, however, it was more like a visit to Plymouth Plantation or Sturbridge village, one of those “living” museums, where the whole shebang is outdoors, and you walk along wooded trails by ponds and fields through a collection of houses and villages., complete with farm animals and actor-villagers in costume who pretend they’ve never heard of a television before.

In the Norway version, the houses were either from the 1700’s or early 1900’s. I confess to being a total geek and loving these kinds of museums, though I know it’s just because they feel like a movie set.

You can often pick up a few interesting tidbits along the way, like what Norwegian flatbread is made of (potato flakes and sour milk), and that is sucks to be a milkmaid. I say this because on the rather warm day we visited her at this museum, she was stuck in a very small, very hot stone room, wearing far too many layers of clothes plus bonnet, and churning butter with movements so vigorous they made my arms burn just watching. I suppose for her, if she does that churning on a daily basis, her arms are probably used to it, and I bet she’s one hell of an arm wrestler, don’t let the bonnet fool you.

Anyway, we left Lillehammer on Monday, and after 45 minutes in the car realized that we had left our passports in the hotel safe, so we turned around and went back for them, thereby turning a four-and-a-half hour day of driving into a six-hour one.

The drive however, was amazing, as the scenery just seemed to get exponentially more spectacular the further we went toward the Western Fjords. The surroundings went from Vermont on steroids, to Maui meets “Lord of the Rings” on steroids, and the scale of it is just not to be believed. I have included some pictures, but photos just don’t seem able to capture the scale of the place.

I will say that Norway seems to be home to some truly terrifying tunnels. On the drive here, we went through two of them in pretty rapid succession, and by the end of the last one both Steve and I were breathing into paper bags. Since Steve is normally a pretty unflappable guy, I realized that these tunnels really must be as scary as I thought they were.

I have never been particularly nervous in tunnels before, but something about these was just freaky. For starters, they are really dark and narrow, with only dim yellow lights above at rather sparse intervals. There were no lines on the road, so it was really hard to tell how close to the sides of the tunnel the car actually was. This was really scary when massive trucks and tour buses would come barreling towards us out of the pitch darkness.

The other freaky thing was that the walls of the tunnels weren't covered with any sort of concrete, so there was just the jagged, dark wet rock shining out at you. It even smelled dank in there. Never before had I been so aware of the fact that I was driving through a mountain. It really felt like being in the belly of the beast.

Both of the tunnels we went through were about 4km long, which was just too long for my liking. Apparently there is one that is 15 miles long somewhere around here.

I guarantee to get me through that I will need some serious sedatives. Or for the milkmaid to bash me over the head with her churn-handle.

Lillehammer

Instead of going to Oslo, we opted for Lillehammer until Monday, and I must say I am glad we did.

Lillehammer hosted the 1994 winter Olympics, and like all former Olympic villages, the memory of those games is kept alive and kicking.

We decided this morning to head to the Ski Jump Chairlift, which, as the name suggests, is at the former sight of the Olympic Ski jump.

We opted to walk to the site rather than drive, because it was only a 25 minute walk, and after the last three straight days in the car, it felt good to be outside in the sun. For reasons I will soon explain, I was walking at a fairly slow clip, since the route to the chairlift was, naturally, straight uphill.

Steve made a comment that he couldn't walk that slowly and was going to go on ahead, and my competitive streak kicked in and I decided to powerwalk past him up the hill. No one's going to call me slow!

This burst of effort turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because my pounding heart caused me to have a raging case of the head-sweats (this is what I had been trying to avoid by pacing myself and not getting overheated).

I'm not sure exactly what has happened, but my scalp seems to have decided, over the last year or so, to enter me in a head-sweating contest. I was not informed of this contest, and I certainly didn't decide to enter it, but it seems to be out of my control. All I can say is that the instant my heart rate gets above 125, my head seems to set off a very special sprinkler system, that releases sweat in amounts that to me seem unrelated to the task at hand.

The head-sweating definitely started when I was on the anti-anxiety meds, and apparently is a very common side effect of them, but I kind of expected it to subside when I went off of them. I have considered that it might be hormone related, but it's not happening when I'm sitting still, only when I exercise.

I know that the body releases something like 90% of its heat through the head, and I do have a scalp covered with a lot of dark hair, and let's face it, a brain like mine that's constantly ticking over with Mensa-like genius is apt to create a lot of heat, but the geysers that wind up coming out of my head seem a bit excessive. Plus I'm not really sweating anywhere else. It's odd.

I remember that my father, who is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, used to say that when they took the cloth caps off of the babies' heads at the end of surgery, they were always filled with water. So I get it, people sweat from the head, but do I need to constantly look like I just got out of the shower every time I go for a walk?!

I have considered shaving my head, but I'm not sure. I believe that any big trip should bring about a corresponding physical change: a change of wardrobe, a new haircut, a new tattoo, a diamond-and-gold front tooth, something like that, so maybe my GI Jane buzzcut will be my new look. I'll keep you posted.

But back to the Lillehammer Ski Jump. This was far more exciting than I had imagined. First of all, the location is stunning, and second of all, the ski jumps are still in use! I had expected an empty shell of a ski jump, but it's still quite a vibrant and active location.

The big ski jump is not in use (or at least it wasn't today), but the smaller one to the right is. The landing area is made up of what looks like the fake grass that Hawaiian skirts were made of, closely woven together, with the knapp all heading downhill. This fake grass is periodically sprayed with water, which must soften it and, I'm guessing, make it closer approximate the feeling of snow upon landing.

These jumpers must have been professionals, and it was really exciting watching them barrel down the ramp and then take flight. Everybody except one person landed perfectly. We watched one guy make the jump, and he landed pretty short, and Steve and I, in our infinite ski-jump-wisdom commented that it wasn't a very good jump.

We then watched this jumper take his skis and face gear off, and realized that this guy was 70 years old if he was a day. On a fricking ski jump. It put me to such shame, I broke out in a head sweat, just to have something to do.

You can take the chair lift up to the top of the large ski jump, and stand at the top of it, looking down, imagining all of the jumpers who looked at this same view before taking their Olympic runs.

If so inclined, it is possible to walk up the 972 stairs to the top, which we opted not to do: my head after all, just couldn't take it. We did, however, walk down. This was fantastic, as the stairs take you right alongside all of the different stages of the jump, so we could see the jumpers up close as the took off down the run, leapt off the ramp, were airborne and then landed.

The whole experience was very, very cool.

So far, the Norwegians have been very nice and they speak almost perfect, unaccented English. The food thus far is fine, nothing too impressive. There seems to be a very large Turkish population here, as almost every menu has a Turkish section on it.

The Norwegians also seem to have an unnatural fixation with waffles, and serve them at every meal. Our breakfast at the hotel features a make-your-own waffle bar, and they offer various jams and spreads alongside. One of these spreads is called Nougaty, which is their version of Nutella. Yum.